Derek Carr injury: What is a transverse process fracture?

The diagnosis is in on Raiders QB Derek Carr following his injury on Sunday, so what exactly is a transverse process fracture?

With the third quarter winding down Sunday in the team’s loss to the Denver Broncos, the Oakland Raiders were dealt a pretty big scare as quarterback Derek Carr was forced to leave the game. Carr was injured on a sack, left the game and did not return, sending the entire fanbase into a panic.

On Monday, just one day after the injury, the diagnosis is in on the Raiders franchise signal-caller. He will be out 2-4 weeks with a transverse process fracture, as was announced by Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio.

While it was apparent when the injury occurred that Carr suffered some sort of back injury, many of you out there may be asking yourself the same question: What the heck exactly is a transverse process fracture. It’s not exactly an injury you hear about on a daily basis in sports, so the confusion is understandable.

According to Sports Injury Clinic, the injury is indeed quite rare, and basically results in the back moving in a manner that it’s not intended to in the first place.

"A transverse process fracture is quite a rare injury. It usually results from a sudden extreme twisting or side bending movement. Occasionally it may be due to a direct impact to the process itself, although they are pretty well covered by muscle to this is not common.Avulsion fractures of the transverse process may also occur in the lumbar spine. The Psoas muscle attaches to the transverse processes and a strong contraction of this muscle may cause one or more fractures.Because of the location of the fracture it is unlikely to cause any instability of the spine or any damage to the spinal cord."

Given the play in which Carr went down on, it does make sense that this is what he suffered, no matter how rare it can be. All things considered, the really positive news here is right at the last part of the explanation where it explains there is no damage to the spinal cord that occurs. Whenever you hear of any sort of injury involving the back area, your first fear is that some spinal cord damage was done.

But that, thankfully, was not the case here for Carr and the other good news is that he’s going to make a full recovery, it seems, and will be back on the field for the Raiders under center in a few weeks.