Travis Kelce Blows Up Xavier Worthy and Injures His Shoulder – Doctor Explains

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Chiefs wide got absolutely blown up on this play from some incidental fire by Travis Kelce and was ruled out of the game with a right shoulder injury. In this video, we’re going to take a closer look at what exactly happened here, what the likely injury was and what we can expect for his recovery. Welcome back everybody. I’m Dr. Brian Sudter and the goal in this channel is to teach you more about the medical side of the sports world. So, the first major injury here of the NFL season is of course to Kansas City Chiefs Xavier Worthy. Now, the sequence of events here, I’m recording this just before halftime. Worthy has been ruled out. He was initially ruled questionable, which is reassuring, but basically, let’s take a look at this play. So, on this play, Travis Kelce is coming across the middle. They don’t see each other. I don’t know who was running the wrong route here, but basically what we’re going to see is Kelsey slam directly into the side of Worthy’s right shoulder. The injury that I’d be concerned about here is a shoulder dislocation based on this injury mechanism. But more importantly, what we saw the medical staff doing to Worthy on the sidelines in this position, Wory’s arm is going to be down at his side. As Kelsey comes in, this is similar to what you might see with an AC joint sprain where that little joint at the tip of the shoulder blade becomes separated, similar to if a wide receiver, for example, was landing on the side of their shoulder. So, that would be one possibility here as well. But what’s going to also occur as his arms are tucked in as Kelsey comes into the side, that force, if it’s directed even slightly anterior, meaning towards the front of his body, is going to want to push the hummeral head, the ball of the shoulder forward and can lead to a dislocation where the ball that shoulder joint pops out of place. And this is what I’m referencing on the sidelines. So pay attention here to what the medical staff is doing. This first medical staff member on this side, he’s got his arm wrapped around Worthy’s waist and he’s going to stabilize himself and he’s going to be pulling in this opposite direction while this medical staff member is pulling downwards and externally rotating his shoulder a little bit. And if you look closely, you can almost see something pop or kind of clunk back into place, which would suggest a reduction. It’s right there. He’s feeling for it. they pull down and then you see almost this like release as worthy then stands up most likely because he felt some relief after that shoulder was put back into place. And so the combination of those two things is why I really think this was a dislocation. Again, if we rewind that and take another look, we can see that counterraction being applied by grabbing around his waist to pull in the opposite direction. This medical staff member grabbing the humorous, pulling down, and then clunk. You see that little bit of relief as he stands back up. The plan then to get X-rays is because you have to make sure that there’s no fracture. Somebody who just sustains a simple dislocation, meaning the ball pops out, comes back in, is in reduced, and there’s no fracture, could theoretically go back in the same game. It’s going to be very rare, especially for somebody who’s had a firsttime dislocation. But that’s probably why he was at first questionable because if your range of motion improves really quickly, your pain is good, and you can functionally do what you need to do, you can allow him to go back out and play. But what can happen when that ball and socket dislocate is the ball can slide past the labum and you can get what’s called a bony bankard injury where there’s a fracture of the socket part of the shoulder. Remember part of that items on the differential is going to be an AC joint injury which is going to be this up here where the tip of the collar bone meets the tip of the shoulder blade. And so that would be another thing they would evaluate for on the X-ray. I don’t think we’d have seen this attempted reduction on the sidelines if it was just an AC joint injury, but definitely something to keep an eye on on the differential. If we hear about a diagnosis of a separated or a sprained shoulder, that would be an injury to this little AC joint up here. If we hear about a dislocated shoulder, obviously that’s going to be the ball and socket. So, going forward, if we play out what I think is most likely of a dislocation, Worthy could be back within a couple of weeks. probably going to be more on the average of a few weeks, maybe four to six, just to get that range of motion and that function back, but this is typically not a season ending injury. Now, they will likely do an MRI. The MRI will show to what extent the labum, which is a little ring of cartilage that goes around the socket, is torn. It’s almost always torn with a dislocation. It’s just a matter of how torn and how affected your function is. If it’s a small tear, they’ll probably let him try to go because a surgery would end his season regardless. So, generally, we will try to rehab. We’ll try to let the athlete return that same season. And then if they fail to return, we know we have to do surgery. If it still bothers them after the season, then you do surgery after the season. So if this is a dislocation, I would be surprised to see anything more than a few weeks, maybe four to six. But we could theoretically see him back as soon as one week, assuming there’s no fracture or no other injuries that they uncover on their evaluation. So that’s it for the video, everybody. Let me know his eyes any questions or comments down below. And until next time, we’ll see you later. Bye.