The Kansas City Chiefs may have hauled in a big victory over the Oakland Raiders on Thursday Night Football, but they suffered a big loss in the process as one of their star players was injured.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid confirmed that linebacker Derrick Johnson, a four-time Pro Bowler, suffered a ruptured left Achilles tendon in the second quarter of the game.
“A sad deal there,” Reid said. “I felt a little bit of a letdown when it happened.”
Johnson missed most of the 2014 season because of a torn right Achilles.
“Justin [Houston] and [Eric Berry] kind of got everybody going and reeled everybody in,” Reid said. “The thing they were saying is, that’s the last thing that D.J. would want, is a letdown. He’s such a big part of our team.”
“He’s a guy I respect so much, and just to see the look on his face when it happened, it looked serious,” Kansas City quarterback Alex Smith said. “There’s not a guy in the locker room that doesn’t look up to D.J., so yeah, in a big game like that, hat’s off to our defense for responding.
“Something like that can hurt you big time, and our guys didn’t miss a beat.”
