Jeremy Hill Leaves Colts Game With Elbow Injury, but later returns

UPDATE

The injury must have looked worse than it really was, as Jeremy Hill is back in the game in the 3rd QTR for the Bengals.

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Game four of the preseason usually has backups and fringe roster guys playing the majority of the game in a last effort to make an impression big enough to warrant keeping them on the final roster. While that has mostly been the case on Thursday night in the preseason finale between the Bengals and Colts, there were still prominent names getting significant work in the first half.

Case in point is second round rookie running back, Jeremy Hill. It was known that he was going to get playing time against Indianapolis given that he is backing up Giovani Bernard, though "backup" really means "Option 1B" in this year's Bengals offense for the youngster out of LSU. Hill worked all the way until just before halftime and then a moment occurred that had Bengals fans holding their breath.

On a third and long, Jason "I heart checking-down" Campbell threw a dump-off pass to Hill in the flat. The rookie turned it upfield and dove towards the first down marker, coming up just short of the needed yardage. As he got up from the turf, Hill was visibly in pain and was escorted to the bench by trainers with an arm injury. It appears that it should be a minor elbow injury:

Jeremy Hill has a right elbow injury and his return is Questionable. He's walking off seemingly OK as team goes in at halftime up 7-0

— Coley Harvey (@ColeyHarvey) August 29, 2014

It was pretty interesting that the Bengals had such a valuable piece of the offense in for so much work, though it was a bit expected given the list of injuries at the position. Rex Burkhead, BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Cedric Peerman are all sitting against the Colts. We probably won't be seeing him the rest of the evening.

On a positive note, Hill was really productive in the first half:

At the half, Hill has 15 rushes for 60 yds and 5 rec. for 63 yds. That's 123 total yds on 20 touches. Colts have 23 total plays, 63 yds

— Jay Morrison (@JayMorrisonCMG) August 29, 2014

We'll continue to update you on the status and severity of Hill's injury as we hear it.