Report: Ameer Abdullah has a torn ligament in his foot, not expected to return in 2016

On Wednesday, Jim Caldwell announced that Ameer Abdullah had surgery on his foot and was placed on the injured reserve list. There was hope, at first, that Abdullah could be the one player placed on IR that could return to practice after six weeks. Caldwell refused to give any details of the injury or the surgery, so hope remained intact.

However, according to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter that seems very unlikely. Schefter is reporting that the Detroit Lions believe Abdullah has a torn ligament in his foot and is very unlikely to return this season.

If true, that means the Lions will have to roll with Theo Riddick as their premier back for the rest of the season. Riddick has been doing a nice job as the replacement back. So far this year, he has 18 rushes for 82 yards. Now, Riddick will have to adjust to being the starting back, but behind him the Lions will rely upon rookie Dwayne Washington and second-year player Zach Zenner.

The Lions also did take a look at Joique Bell earlier in the week. So if the team is unhappy with any of those three players, it’s quite possible for Bell to return to his former team.

For Abdullah, this has to be a huge disappointment for a player that was expecting to have a breakout season, especially given his promising start. In one and a half games, Abdullah had 158 all-purpose yards and one touchdown.

In slightly better news, Schefter is reporting that Ezekiel Ansah isn’t expected to sit out too much longer.

Schefter added in his column that “the Lions do not think the injury will sideline Ansah more than the next couple of games,” but added that the team won’t know for sure until the second opinion comes in.

UPDATE: Dave Birkett is adding injury news, and it’s not good. It looks like DeAndre Levy is expected to miss more than this week, too.