Report: Frank Clark’s neck injury described as “week to week”

According to a report from NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport, the injury that is keeping Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark out of Sunday night’s game against the Green Bay Packers is considered “week-to-week.”

From the perspective of our in-house sports medicine expert Aaron Borgmann, the report gives us a little bit more to chew on with regard to the nature of Clark’s injury.

But reading between the lines of Rapoport’s tweet (“he’s been battling this and somehow has been playing”), we could infer that Clark’s neck injury has been an issue for an unknown period of time — but one that extends to before the Broncos game in Denver. If that’s the case, he hasn’t sought treatment for it until this week — the first time he has been listed on a Chiefs injury report.

During Wednesday’s media session, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said that Clark’s “neck has been acting up a little bit, so he won’t practice until we get that to settle down a little bit.” When asked on Friday if Clark’s injury occurred in the game against the Broncos a week ago Thursday, Reid said that “he was OK there” — suggesting that the injury had occurred since the game. Even though Reid also said that Clark had been getting better, Friday’s injury report listed him as out for Sunday’s game against the Packers.

But now Rapoport is calling this into question. Has Clark been battling a neck injury since before the game against the Broncos — one that he simply didn’t report to team trainers until this week — or has something else been going on?

So far, the Chiefs have provided very little information. With what Rapoport has gleaned from his sources, it seems likely that Reid will have to field additional questions about Clark’s injury in the coming days — particularly if Clark remains unavailable for the Week 9 game against the Minnesota Vikings.