After Detroit Lions defensive tackle Nick Fairley hurt his foot on Monday, concerns about it being serious went away with news about a negative X-ray. Jim Schwartz and Fairley himself said he simply tweaked his foot and would likely be back soon.
Fairley ended up missing Tuesday's practice, which isn't necessarily a huge surprise or concern. The Lions aren't going to rush him back, even if he did only tweak his foot. There is some concern over if that's the case, though. Fairley may have done more than just tweak his foot, or at the least the tweak may be more severe than originally thought, because he was sporting a walking boot this morning.
Obviously you don't want to jump to conclusions about the appearance of a walking boot, and Schwartz did say that more tests are needed. The concern is that Schwartz is no longer sure if this is a long-term or short-term injury. Schwartz said yesterday he hoped to have Fairley back soon, but he didn't put an exact timetable on his return for this very reason.
According to Chris McCosky, it's "possible" Fairley has a stress fracture, which would not be good news. The hope at this point is that it's a severe tweak and nothing more, but the Lions won't know more for sure until after more tests are done.