Chiefs Rookie CB Mansoor Delane Gets Encouraging Scans After Shoulder Injury in Week 1 Win Over Broncos

The Kansas City Chiefs opened their season with a 31-10 blowout of the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football, but the win came with a scare on the injury front.

Rookie cornerback Mansoor Delane, the No. 6 overall pick out of LSU, went down in the first quarter after intercepting Bo Nix's first pass attempt of the game. He landed on his right shoulder during the return and did not come back out for Denver's second offensive drive. The Chiefs ruled him out for the rest of the game with a shoulder injury, according to Sports Illustrated.

The team had reason to be nervous. Delane battled a hairline fracture on that same right scapula during the spring and much of training camp, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport. Landing on the identical spot raised fears of a reaggravation that could sideline him for weeks, especially since FanSided reported he'd experienced numbness and tingling in the shoulder immediately after the hit, prompting the team to pull him for further evaluation.

By Tuesday, the news had turned in Kansas City's favor. Rapoport reported that X-rays came back negative, followed by a negative CT scan as well. "CT scan, negative. Not out of the woods yet. But there is a lot of positivity that this is a short-term injury," Rapoport said on ESPN's "NFL Live," per Newsweek. Rapoport also told the Pat McAfee Show, as relayed by A to Z Sports, that Delane is still scheduled for an MRI, and that the belief inside the building is he'll miss minimal time.

Why Delane matters so much to this defense

The Chiefs didn't just draft Delane. They traded up with the Cleveland Browns to grab him at No. 6, then turned around and dealt former All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams, according to Newsweek and Sportsnet. Los Angeles then signed another starting corner, Jaylen Watson, in free agency, and Kansas City also lost starting safety Bryan Cook in the offseason. That left a rebuilt secondary leaning almost entirely on a 22-year-old rookie to hold up in a division that includes Nix and the Chargers' Justin Herbert.

Delane signed a four-year, $41.9 million fully guaranteed rookie contract, a deal that reflects how much the Chiefs are banking on him long-term. His college résumé backs up the bet: 191 tackles, eight interceptions, 27 passes defended and four forced fumbles across four seasons split between Virginia Tech and LSU, capped by an All-American year with the Tigers, according to NFL Trade Rumors.

His NFL debut delivered on that promise for exactly one play. Intercepting a starting quarterback's first pass attempt of the season is a rare start for any rookie corner. That it happened in prime time on Monday Night Football only raised the stakes when he immediately went down.

What's still unresolved

The scans clearing Delane of a fracture or major structural damage is good news. Rapoport's sourcing here is about as direct as it gets in NFL injury reporting: two negative imaging results from a named insider, not an anonymous "team source." But "not out of the woods yet" is Rapoport's own phrase, and the MRI results hadn't been reported as of Tuesday.

That leaves Delane's status for Kansas City's Week 2 matchup against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday Night Football genuinely up in the air. The Chiefs are working a short week, with practice resuming Wednesday. A.J. Bracey at A to Z Sports noted that if the injury is as minor as the early scans suggest, Delane could realistically start the week limited and work up to full participation by Sunday.

Until the MRI results come back and Delane actually returns to practice, the Chiefs' secondary rotation of LJ'Arius Sneed, Nohl Williams and Kristian Fulton will need to hold the fort. Whether Kansas City's most important defensive rookie is on the field Sunday night against Indianapolis remains the open question.