Ben Roethlisberger, Dez Bryant return to action for Week 8

Throughout the NFL season, SB Nation Medical Expert Dr. Ali Mohamadi will provide his insights on the most notable injuries in the fantasy landscape and how they might affect your roster decisions on game day. Here are some key injuries and their impact for Week 8.

Reports are now telling us that Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant will return to the field this week for the first time since sustaining a Jones fracture of his right foot in Week 1. A Jones fracture is a break in the fifth metatarsal of the foot, the bone that spans the area between the base of the foot and the little toe. One issue that makes healing of this type of fracture particularly tricky is that the fracture occurs at an area that does not have significant blood supply, and this is one reason that many athletes, Bryant included, often undergo surgery to ensure proper re-union of the bone and a speedier recovery.

At only seven weeks following the injury, Bryant is at the early end of the typical recovery period, but reports out of Dallas indicate that he has been able to practice without any complications this week and that the foot itself should not be a problem when Dallas hosts the Seattle Seahawks. According to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Bryant will wear a protective orthotic fitting in his shoe and may be on a “pitch count” this afternoon; this may be as much due to a need to get back into football condition as it is due to the healing of the injury itself.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is be ready to make his return today against the Bengals, five weeks after suffering a sprained medial collateral ligament (MCL) of his left knee. Roethlisberger sustained a Grade 2 sprain of the ligament in the team’s Week 3 win over St. Louis, when he was struck from the outside of the joint by Rams safety Mark Barron, meaning he is at the early end of the spectrum.

The MCL is the structure that runs along the inside of the joint -- connecting the femur (thigh bone) to the shin bone (tibia) -- and keeps the knee from rotating sideways. After only lightly practicing last week, when he was a late scratch before the team’s loss to Kansas City, he has practiced nearly in full this week, using a brace on the affected knee. Pain and mobility are the biggest lingering factors in the recovery from an MCL sprain, but it appears all systems are go for Big Ben on Sunday.

Another star dealing with a left MCL sprain is San Diego tight end Antonio Gates, who injured his knee late in the Chargers’ Week 6 loss to Green Bay. For the second consecutive week, Gates did not practice and although he had been listed as questionable on the team’s injury report, he will play Sunday against Baltimore.

Cardinals receiver John Brown has been dealing with a hamstring injury, but he’s officially active against Cleveland. Brown did practice in a limited fashion late in the week.

Hamstring injuries are slow to heal and notoriously prone to re-injury if tested before an athlete is back to 100 percent, so the first-place Cardinals are sure to take a long look in warm ups today before the decide whether to go the cautious route with their young receiver today.