Part of the reason the Lions traded for tight end Tony Scheffler was because Brandon Pettigrew is recovering from an ACL injury. Pettigrew's timetable for returning is unknown publicly, and although the hope is that he will be back in time for training camp, it's not bad to have Scheffler as an insurance policy.
The problem right now, however, is that the insurance policy is banged up as well. Scheffler was excused from last week's Thursday OTA for an undisclosed reason, and we now know that he was busy getting his right foot checked out. We also now know that Scheffler's right foot is injured, because he missed yesterday's OTA and was seen wearing a protective boot.
Jim Schwartz insisted that Scheffler's injury isn't anything serious and shouldn't keep him out for long, which is good to hear.
"He’s got an irritated foot," coach Jim Schwartz said. "We just put him in the boot for a little while. He’ll probably be back soon. Nothing big. Just a little bit of irritation."
Asked if that was why Scheffler was absent last Thursday, the last OTA open to the media, Schwartz said: "He was just getting it checked out. He’s fine. It’s going to be a short-term thing, but how soon, I don’t know. But we’ll get him back as soon as we can."
I guess this explains why the Lions brought in tight end John Madsen a couple days ago. With Scheffler out and Pettigrew still limited to only individual drills, the Lions were in need of another body at tight end, and that is exactly what Madsen is for the time being.