Doctor explains what might have happened with Lions defensive lineman Levi Onwuzurike’s injury that seemingly came out of nowhere
Right off the bat, we have to say that a lot of this is purely speculative. We don’t actually know what happened to Detroit Lions defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike. But what we do know is that he has a torn ACL and will miss the 2025 season. The thing is, we don’t exactly know when […]
Right off the bat, we have to say that a lot of this is purely speculative. We don’t actually know what happened to Detroit Lions defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike. But what we do know is that he has a torn ACL and will miss the 2025 season. The thing is, we don’t exactly know when that happened.
We recently sat down with Dr. Clayton Nuelle from the University of Missouri. Nuelle is an expert in ACL injuries, and he gave us some insight into the subject.
What we know about Levi Onwuzurike’s injury
What we do know is that Onwuzurkie was wearing a knee brace in the final weeks of the season and in the divisional round of the playoffs. We also know that in Week 18, he went down with an injury and then returned to the game. Then, for a while, we heard nothing about it. The Lions signed Onwuzurike to a new one-year deal that felt like a steal in free agency, and we didn’t find out until shortly before training camp that he would be out for the year with a torn ACL.
Some speculated at the time that the Lions were aware of Onwuzurike’s injury before signing him, which is why they secured such a great deal. That doesn’t make any sense when you consider it’s a one-year deal, and he’s going to miss that entire year. What might have happened is that Onwuzurike had a partially torn ACL that wound up either being worse than initially thought or further torn to the point where surgery was needed.
Campbell sort of alluded to the latter in his initial presser about why Onwuzurike was added to the Reserve/PUP list.
“Let me start with Levi. Levi is out for the year. Levi’s surgery was significant, but it needed to be done.” Campbell said. “Out of his control, and it needed to be done, so he will miss the season.
What might have happened with Levi Onwuzurike’s injury
Just to reiterate again, this is what might have happened. We’re not saying this definitely happened. This is purely speculative, based on our current knowledge and a conversation with an expert.
To begin with, there’s a gradation to ACL tears. It’s not just one size fits all, and not all of them require surgery immediately.
“You can tear a ligament, 10% 50%, 90%, 100% and you can have concomitant injuries in other areas of the knee or other areas of the joint, ligament, meniscus, cartilage, whatever,” Nuelle said. “And so there’s definite variations and gradations to these injuries, and a player can partially tear their ACL, and if it’s just a very, very small percentage, especially a high elite level athlete, there’s a chance they could potentially rehab that and stay strong and continue playing, especially if it’s a playoff push, or they’re in a contract year, or all those different things that we see at the NFL.”
That would explain how Onwuzrike continued playing in the final weeks of the season. He rehabbed and began wearing a knee brace and kept going. From there, we learned that while you can rehabilitate a partial tear, you can also, obviously, go the other way and tear it further.
What Nuelle makes clear is that in the NFL, and at his level in college, if a player gets hurt on the field, they will undergo an MRI that day and have a team of medical professionals examining and monitoring the injury. Potentially, the Lions felt that what they were seeing with Onwuzurike’s injury at the time was not as severe as it ultimately turned out to be. This points to the idea that it just got worse with time, and he had to get the surgery despite early beliefs that he could forgo it.
Again, this is all speculation, but speaking with Nuelle, it seems to support the idea that Onwuzurike had an injury that worsened over time, rather than improving.