{"id":361401,"date":"2025-09-12T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/361401\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T06:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:00:14","slug":"commanders-rb-suffers-achilles-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/361401\/","title":{"rendered":"Commanders RB suffers Achilles injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/86059115007-usatsi-27003062.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>NFL Week 2 predictions: Why we picked Eagles, Steelers, Bengals<\/p>\n<p>If you need help with your NFL picks this week, Lorenzo is here with his three best bets ahead of Sunday&#8217;s games.<\/p>\n<p>The <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/washington-commanders\/363\" data-autotag=\"a4fb178e-5fd0-440a-8a7b-b87aea742850\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Washington Commanders<\/a> already lost one of their defensive players, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2025\/09\/11\/deatrich-wise-injury-update-latest-washington-commanders\/86104532007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Deatrich Wise<\/a>, to injury in their &#8220;Thursday Night Football&#8221; matchup with the Green Bay Packers.<\/p>\n<p>Now, they have lost running back <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/austin-ekeler\/790004\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Austin Ekeler<\/a> to a non-contact leg injury.<\/p>\n<p>Ekeler went down on a passing play in the fourth quarterback away from the ball. The 30-year-old veteran appeared to be making a cut but fell to the ground, reaching for his right lower leg.<\/p>\n<p>Ekeler attempted to get up, but the Commanders&#8217; medical staff had him remain down on the turf. He eventually got up to stand and was helped off the field, putting no weight on his right leg.<\/p>\n<p>The Amazon Prime broadcast initially showed Ekeler sitting on the bench while continuing to get treatment. However, just a few minutes later, the veteran running back was seen being carted into the locker room.<\/p>\n<p>The Commanders quickly ruled Ekeler out for the game with an Achilles injury, stoking fears he had suffered a significant injury.<\/p>\n<p>The belief is Ekeler suffered a torn Achilles at the end of the Commanders&#8217; loss to the Packers, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AdamSchefter\/status\/1966357125732642851\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">ESPN&#8217;s Adam Schefter reports<\/a>. Ekeler will have an MRI on Friday to confirm the diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapSheet\/status\/1966357230321561999\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">NFL Network&#8217;s Ian Rapoport<\/a> reports &#8220;there is not a lot of hope&#8221; regarding Ekeler&#8217;s injury going into the MRI.<\/p>\n<p>Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said the team won&#8217;t have an update until Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Ekeler is listed as the top running back on Washington&#8217;s depth chart. Rookie <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/jacory-croskeymerritt\/1191186\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Jacory Croskey-Merritt<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2025\/09\/11\/bill-croskey-merritt-commanders-rb-depth-chart\/86086256007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">whose nickname is Bill<\/a>, would likely see an uptick in playing time if Ekeler&#8217;s MRI confirms an Achilles tear.<\/p>\n<p>Below is the full look at Washington&#8217;s running back depth chart:<\/p>\n<p>Austin EkelerBill Croskey-Merritt<a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/jeremy-mcnichols\/837594\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Jeremy McNichols<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/chris-rodriguez-jr\/1113403\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Chris Rodriguez Jr.<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/donovan-edwards\/1287566\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Donovan Edwards<\/a>\u00a0(practice squad)<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez did not dress for Thursday&#8217;s game. The bruiser would likely replace Ekeler on the active, game-day roster and become the short-yardage and potential goal-line back in Washington&#8217;s backfield-by-committee.<\/p>\n<p>(This story will be updated as more information becomes available.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL Week 2 predictions: Why we picked Eagles, Steelers, Bengals If you need help with your NFL picks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[247,265,9819,4142,427,19884,19887,31478,12,388,7,20842,379,1070,677,679,248,267,330,88,6,35196,245,338,9,266,678,855,111,13275],"class_list":{"0":"post-361401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-austin","11":"tag-austin-ekeler","12":"tag-commanders","13":"tag-deatrich","14":"tag-deatrich-wise-jr","15":"tag-ekeler","16":"tag-espn","17":"tag-espn-inc","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-hub","20":"tag-inc","21":"tag-jr","22":"tag-modular","23":"tag-modular-story","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-national-sports","26":"tag-negative","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-nfl","29":"tag-nfl-hub","30":"tag-overall","31":"tag-overall-negative","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-sports-news","34":"tag-story","35":"tag-washington","36":"tag-washington-commanders","37":"tag-wise"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115189804510646834","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}