Detroit Lions TE Devin Funchess leaves practice with upper-body injury

Detroit Lions' tight end Devin Funchess left Wednesday’s joint practice with the Indianapolis Colts after suffering an apparent upper-body injury.

During a red zone drill, Funchess caught a pass and was immediately hit by a Colts defender, who jarred the ball loose. Upon getting up, Funchess was favoring the right side of his body in obvious pain. He would spend several minutes with a trainer on the sidelines before eventually leaving practice.

Funchess has been trending up in the Lions’ tight end battle after catching four passes for 19 yards and a touchdown in the preseason opener against the Atlanta Falcons.

“It’s good to see him have a little bit of production, because really as you mentioned, he hadn’t had a lot of targets and maybe production in camp thus far as he’s getting accustomed to feeling it out in the box instead of spread out wide,” tight ends coach Tanner Engstrand said this week. “ It was really good to see him do that. Get down in the red zone, I mean, he can jump out of this room. And he’s tall and athletic and long, so that was awesome to see him make that play down in the red zone.”

Funchess has been on the roster bubble, fighting for a spot after starter T.J. Hockenson and primary backup Brock Wright. Early this week, the Lions cut two competitors in the tight end room, Garrett Griffin and Nolan Givan. That leaves Funchess, rookies Derrick Deese Jr. and James Mitchell, and Shane Zylstra for the final spot or two in the tight end room.

At this point, we don’t know anything further about the injury, but we’ll likely get an update from coach Dan Campbell before the second joint practice between the Colts and Lions on Thursday.

UPDATE: Funchess provided a vague, but positive update on Wednesday night via his Instagram: