Donald Thomas Out for Season; DHB to Undergo MRI

During today's loss to the Miami Dolphins, the Colts had a few injuries to key players.  Earlier in the game, offensive lineman Donald Thomas, one of the best linemen on the Colts, was injured in what appeared to be a non-contact injury and he went down fast clutching his leg.  They had to bring the cart out on the field to take him off, and very quickly the Colts ruled him out for the rest of the game.

Pro Football Talk, citing a league source, reported on what the injury is:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Colts OL Donald Thomas has torn quad muscle, per league source.</p>&mdash; ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) <a href="https://twitter.com/ProFootballTalk/statuses/379327334785892353">September 15, 2013</a></blockquote>

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I asked the "injury expert" a.k.a. Will Carroll what a torn quad means for Thomas, and he said that it's too early to tell, as it could be a very wide range of recovery time.  A very wide window.  After the game, Chuck Pagano confirmed the report of a torn quad and said that he will need season ending surgery.  That's a huge blow.  A huge one - even bigger than losing Ballard for the season.

Thomas was signed by the Colts as a free agent from New England this offseason.  He was really the only guard that they could consistently depend on and was one of the few actually good lineman on this Colts team.  And now he's done for the year.  This offensive line just keeps getting worse.  And also, this means that Mike McGlynn will be starting all year, barring an injury.  That shows you how much this hurts, right?  This is a huge injury for the Colts.

The other notable injury was to Darrius Heyward-Bey, who initially was said to have a rib injury that kept him out for the rest of the game but now apparently suffered a shoulder injury instead.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Colts&amp;src=hash">#Colts</a> coach says DHB came down hard on shoulder. MRI scheduled.</p>&mdash; Phillip B Wilson (@pwilson24) <a href="https://twitter.com/pwilson24/statuses/379360091293888512">September 15, 2013</a></blockquote>

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DHB has been having a solid season for the Colts early on and has done what the Colts have asked of him.  He hasn't done anything tremendously special or anything, but he has been consistent and solid.  Again, we can't really speculate on DHB's injury or how long he will be out yet.  We need to wait and see how his MRI goes.

The thing that sticks out to me is that these two players have a connection to what are perhaps the two biggest complaints amongst fans regarding who is starting.  Thomas' replacement, Hugh Thornton, is a guy that every fan wanted to see, although nobody wanted to see him in for Thomas (but rather in for Mike McGlynn).  DHB is the team's second receiver, but the third receiver is better than DHB and is a guy that fans want to start instead (T.Y. Hilton).

The Colts lost a starting offensive lineman for the season. That's never good.  And an ugly loss just got uglier.