Arizona Cardinals’ running back Beanie Wells sustained a knee injury in the final preseason game and missed the first two games of the regular season with what was described as a ‘bruised knee’.  Only it was slightly more serious than that—Wells suffered a torn meniscus which required arthroscopic knee surgery.  It wasn’t a serious procedure, and he’s still on track to return any time but the strange thing about the situation was the team’s insistence on keeping it a secret until Friday afternoon.

Coach Ken Whisenhunt had maintained the ‘party line’ that Wells was out of action with a bruised knee, and even pleaded ignorance at his weekly press conference when a reporter from CBS Sportsline asked about incision marks on Wells’ knee.  At the time, Whisenhunt remained mum but later got in touch with the reporter to confirm the arthroscopic procedure.  He gave the following statement, which doesn’t really answer the question of why they kept the surgery a secret:

“It wasn’t like a normal procedure where you’re down X amount of weeks.  It was a day-to-day thing. It was definitely something that we wanted to check out, but it wasn’t ever anything that we thought was serious or that we thought would keep him from playing on a week-to-week basis.”

Wells also underplayed the significance of his injury and the surgery:

“I really wasn’t worried about what people knew and didn’t know. I had my knee scoped. I had a procedure done. I had to take some time off and I’m back from it.”

The former Ohio State standout led the Cardinals in rushing as a rookie last season.  He was limited at practice all week, but increased his participation on a day to day basis.  Most serious NFL fans and media question the veracity of NFL injury reports, which some go so far as to call a work of fiction.  No one was really buying the ‘bruised knee’ diagnosis given, so there’s not a lot of surprise that it ended up being something more serious.  Whisenhunt said that he’s likely to play against Oakland in the Cardinals’ home opener on Sunday.

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