The Detroit Lions keep taking hits over and over again. First they lost Marcus Davenport, then it was Derrick Barnes, then the big blow with Aidan Hutchinson and then on Sunday they lost Alex Anzalone. But they may not be it, the Lions may now be without Ifeatu Melifonwu for the rest of the regular season.
Melifonwu has not yet played this season due to an ankle injury he suffered during training camp. The Lions spent a lot of time waiting for him to get better until they finally placed him on injured reserve back at the end of September.
The Lions started his 21-day clock on November 6th and it seemed promising that he would return soon since he was immediately a full participant in practices. Then last week he suffered a separate injury (a finger injury) and per Lions' head coach Dan Campbell, he could be out for a while.
"This is going to come up anyway. He just, he had something come up, and he's not going to be, he won't be ready for a while. He's not going to be ready for a while."
Now, the important thing to note is that since this is a new injury that is not part of his ankle injury, this resets everything for him. The Lions no longer have to get him activated or lose him by the end of his 21 day clock. The Lions now essentially have a new clock.
Campbell said there's potential that he could return this season, but we'll have to wait and see what happens. Right now it's all up in the air because he's not fully healed from his ankle injury and now he has hand injury. Campbell said "a while", but we don't know exactly how long "a while" is. We do know that it usually means for more than a game or two. The Lions have seven games left to play. Let's see what happens.
