NFL
HOUSTON (AP) - Texans receiver Will Fuller has a torn knee ligament and will miss the rest of the season, a big blow to a team that has won five in a row and is coming off a high-scoring victory.
He was injured during the fourth quarter Thursday night against Miami when he became entangled with a defender and tumbled to the ground.
Coach Bill O’Brien said Friday he doesn’t know when Fuller will have surgery to repair the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.
“I’m very disappointed for Will because Will’s a great guy,” O’Brien said. “He’s really been playing at a high level.”
Fuller had a season-high 124 yards receiving with a 73-yard touchdown on Thursday before the injury. He had 503 yards receiving and four touchdowns in seven games this season. The third-year player was a first-round pick in 2016.
The Texans ran up a season-high 42 points against the Dolphins. At 5-3, they are leading the AFC South.
“If you go through every team, everybody’s dealing with injuries,” O’Brien said. “It’s such a cliche, but the coaching staff, the players, we all have to pitch in and figure it out and figure out how we’re going to construct the offense. And maybe some things will be the same and maybe some things will be a little bit different.”
BASEBALL
NEW YORK (AP) - Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes has undergone heel surgery, the second of two foot operations the team hopes will enable him to return at some point next year.
The team said the operation to remove bone calcification in the left heel was done in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Robert Anderson also operated on Cespedes’ right heel Aug. 2.
The 33-year-old slugger was limited to 38 games this year and hit .262 with nine homers and 29 RBIs. He missed two months after a May 13 game at Philadelphia with what the Mets said was a strained right hip flexor. He homered at the New York Yankees in his return July 20, and then surprised the Mets after that game by revealing the foot issues.
Five days later, the Mets said Cespedes was going to have surgery on both feet. Assistant general manager John Ricco said then that Cespedes likely would need eight to 10 months to recover.
AUTO RACING
IndyCar driver Robert Wickens is paralyzed from the chest down from injuries suffered in an August crash at Pocono Raceway.
The 29-year-old Wickens has been updating his rehabilitation progress on social media and posted a video of his “first slide transfer as a paraplegic” that showed him moving from a table to his wheelchair. His videos had shown for the past month that he is working daily to move his legs again, but Thursday’s post was the first time he publicly confirmed his paralysis.
“I’ve only been posting videos of the small movement in my legs, but the reality is I am far away from walking on my own,” Wickens wrote. “Some people are a bit confused with the severity of my injury, so I wanted let you know the reality of it. I’ve never worked harder for anything in my life, and I am giving it all I’ve got to spark those nerves in my legs.”
Wickens recently left an Indianapolis rehabilitation facility for one in Colorado.
“Two people with the same injury may heal differently,” Wickens tweeted Friday night. “One may walk again and one may not. Each body heals differently. So we can not tell you a definitive answer if I will walk again. But I have full intentions of doing just that!
“The good news is, I already have most feeling and some movement in my legs, so there is hope over the course of 24 months that I may regain enough movement to walk again! So far the signs are promising, but I’m trying not to get ahead of myself! I am just keeping my head down and working until my therapist and doctors tell me to stop.”
The Canadian crashed at Pocono on Aug. 19 and suffered a thoracic spinal fracture, spinal cord injury, neck fracture, tibia and fibula fractures to both legs, fractures in both hands, fractured right forearm, fractured elbow, four fractured ribs and a pulmonary contusion.
NHL
John Ziegler Jr.’s tumultuous 15 years as NHL president began with the league ushering in the Wayne Gretzky era and ended with labor unrest and a players strike in 1992.
The NHL on Friday confirmed Ziegler’s death, although the cause was not immediately known. He was 84 and living in Florida.
“His positive imprint on the game of hockey cannot ever be overstated,” Chicago Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz said. “While he will be missed, his legacy and contributions to our sport will carry on forever.”
Ziegler was the first American to run the league and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987.
He was credited for helping the NHL become an international league by increasing the number of European players and opening the door for Russians to compete in North America.
Ziegler was the NHL’s fourth president, succeeding Clarence Campbell in 1977. Two years later, he played a key role in brokering a merger with the World Hockey Association in which the NHL added four teams from the upstart league - the Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques and Hartford Whalers.
While the Jets, Nordiques and Whalers eventually relocated, the Gretzky-led Oilers quickly succeeded, winning four Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1988. The Oilers posted a picture of Ziegler handing the Stanley Cup to a beaming Gretzky on the team’s Twitter feed.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.