PAIN FOR JETS

For lineman

The pain associated with this injury typically lasts 4-6 weeks, according to the physician. Wilkerson, who missed practice Thursday for a second consecutive day, will almost certainly be held out of practice at least once a week for the foreseeable future.

Although medical staffs don’t like to anesthetize a joint on game day, the Jets will probably give Wilkerson a long-acting pain injection before warmups against the Jaguars on Sunday. (They might have given him a pain injection before last week’s game, too).

The downside to that treatment is that the defensive lineman will be very sore following the game and during the following week. Wilkerson will go through the same cycle until the pain upon contact subsides.

Although Todd Bowles claimed that Wilkerson’s reduced snaps last week were related more to the heat than his injury, let’s get real. Wilkerson played in only 62% of the Week 3 snaps after playing 88% and 84%, respectively, in the first two games, because he’s not fully healthy. The man had one tackle in 39 snaps for Pete’s sake. njury or no injury, that kind of production isn’t good enough for a guy whose $18 million cap hit this year is more than twice as much as anyone else on the team. That isn’t good enough for a player who accounts for 10.8 percent of the Jets’ cap.

“I’ll be all right,” Wilkerson said. “I told you, I’ll be all right. I’m not frustrated.”

The same can’t be said for the team decision makers, who invested and believed in him. If nothing changes over the next three months, Wilkerson will be gone. And he knows it.

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