Advocate staff photo by ELIOT KAMENITZ– New Orleans Saints free safety Rafael Bush (25) is carted off the field with a leg injury in the fourth quarter in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, La. Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014.
The leg fracture Saints safety Rafael Bush suffered in Sunday’s 27-10 loss at home to Cincinnati may not be as severe as first thought.
Bush told reporters after the game that he hurt a leg making a tackle with fewer than five minutes left in the contest. He said the diagnosis after an initial examination was he had broken the primary weight-bearing bone in his right leg, or tibia, but he was expecting to be evaluated further.
On Monday, a league source said Bush learned he had actually fractured another bone: his right fibula. The fibula runs parallel to the tibia — or shinbone — and carries less weight on it. Because of that, a fractured fibula is considered less serious than a broken tibia.
Published medical literature generally estimates it can take four to six weeks for a fractured fibula to heal. After Sunday’s defeat, there are six games left in the regular season for the Saints (4-6), and their mathematical possibilities of making the playoffs are very much alive because they have the same record as the first-place team in their division, Atlanta.
Atlanta is in first place at the moment because they beat the Saints at the Georgia Dome in Week 1. The Saints and Atlanta play each other again on Dec. 21 in New Orleans.
Bush’s injury leaves the Saints with three healthy safeties for now: Kenny Vaccaro, in his second year with the team; Marcus Ball, who’s in his first NFL season after beginning his pro career in the Canadian Football League; and Jamarca Sanford, who signed with New Orleans last Wednesday.
Bush is the third Saints safety this year to suffer a major injury. Jairus Byrd suffered a season-ending knee injury in a practice prior to Week 5, and Vinnie Sunseri fractured his arm during a loss to San Francisco a week ago.
Starting ever since Byrd was lost for the season, Bush was second on the Saints with 49 combined tackles heading into Sunday (41 of them were solo). He was in a three-way tie for third in passes defensed (three).
Bush added five tackles (three solo) to his totals in Sunday’s setback to the Bengals.
“Obviously, you don’t want those things happening that late in the game,” Bush said of his injury after the game against Cincinnati (6-3-1) while he sat at his locker with crutches at his side and his right leg enveloped in ice and a bandage. “But … being (a) competitor and continuing to fight — that’s … all I was doing. It was … a freak accident. There’s nobody to blame.”