Colts wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey suffered a knee sprain in practice on Sunday, and it's expected that an official diagnosis and recovery time will be announced on Monday after practice. Indianapolis signed Heyward-Bey as a free agent in the offseason to replace the departed Donnie Avery, but both players have had issues with drops in their careers.
Darrius Heyward-Bey awaits news on sprained knee, so do fantasy owners
The Colts are hopeful that their new addition on offense doesn’t have a serious injury. The news should be coming in later today.
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What Heyward-Bey has not had many issues with in his career is missed-games-due-to-injury. Drafted by the Raiders with the seventh overall pick in 2009, Heyward-Bey has played in 45 of a possible 48 games in the last three years for Oakland. He caught 41 passes for 606 yards last season with the Raiders.
The Colts are expecting him to team up with Reggie Wayne and T.Y. Hilton to form a nice trio for quarterback Andrew Luck.
Fantasy Impact: Heyward-Bey seemed to have a breakout year in 2011, catching 56% of his 115 targets for 975 yards, but that took a significant downturn last year when he caught only 51% of his 80 targets. The Colts got a similar amount of production, or lack thereof, from Avery and so they’re hopeful that with Luck throwing to him that Heyward-Bey can have a bounce-back year.
If healthy, Heyward-Bey could have a year a lot more similar to 2011 than 2012 since the Colts offense as a whole is much better than what Oakland has been running. But if he misses too much preseason time, that loss of practice time with Luck could be detrimental and open the door for somebody else.
