You could call this a string of injuries in National Football League—a string of hamstring injuries, that is. Two wide receivers—Nico Collins of the Houston Texans and Zay Flowers of the Baltimore Ravens—and one free safety—Tyler Okada of the Seattle Seahawks—will be missing the upcoming week two of the 2026 NFL season due to injuries to their hamstring muscles.

Hamstring Injuries Will Keep Collins, Flowers And Okada Sidelined During Week 2

Collins injury occurred this past Wednesday at the Texans practice. Doctors’ have been calling this a grade one hamstring tear. More on that one later. The injury kept the 27-year-old star receiver out of practices on Thursday and Friday before the team deemed him a no-go for Sunday’s clash against the Cincinnati Bengals. The six-year veteran did miss five games in 2024 from a hamstring injury.

Flowers’ situation is equally un-flowery. The 26-year-old wide receiver had five catches for 150 yards and a touchdown during the Ravens win over the Indianapolis before leaving in the second quarter with a hamstring injury. Flowers missed practices on Wednesday and Thursday and had a limited practice on Friday before the Ravens said uh-uh to his playing on Sunday against the New Orleans Saints.

The main difference with the 27-year-old Okada—besides his being on the defensive side of the ball—is that he hasn’t even had a chance to play in the 2026 NFL regular season yet. His hamstring injury kept him out of the week one win over the New England Patriots and will keep him out of the week two tilt against the Arizona Cardinals.

Hamstring Injuries Can Linger

Now, these hamstring injuries could pull at the heartstrings of fans and Fantasy Football players for a while. Hamstring injuries are notorious for lingering. That’s because they involve at least one of the three big muscles that run along the back of each of your upper legs—for a total of two sets of three hamstring muscles, assuming that you aren’t a millipede. And these muscles are key to a lot of football-related movements, making them very susceptible to re-injury once the athlete returns to the sport.

This hamstring trio—the biceps femoris, semitendinosus and semimembranosus muscles—is largely responsible for bending your knee and straightening your hip, as I’ve described before in Forbes . These movements are vital for walking, running especially sprinting, jumping and climbing. They are also important for slowing down and stopping—two other important activities assuming that once you start running, you don’t want to keep running for eternity.

A Hamstring Strain Is When The Muscle Fibers Get Stretched Or Torn

The most common hamstring injury is known as a strain or pull, which is when fibers in the muscle get stretched or torn. The treatment and prognosis of a hamstring strain do depend on the grade of the injury, as I have detailed previously in Forbes .

To recap, a Grade 1 strain is a mild where only a small percentage of muscle fibers have been torn. Pain and swelling may result. But typically, you still will have full muscle strength.

The next grade up is Grade 2, because that’s how numbers work. This is a moderate strain where significantly more fibers have been torn, which tends to result in a lot more pain. There’s also is usually some loss of muscle power.

The worst type of hamstring strain is a Grade 3 one, where you’ve got a rut-roh amount of tearing to the point where the muscle is completely torn or ruptured. This is a big owie situation with significant swelling and loss of muscle function.

What Causes Hamstring Strains

Hamstring strains tend to occur when the muscles get overloaded—such as when you start or stop sprinting abruptly—or overstretched—such as when you do an aggressive split or a Rockette-like high kick. Such tears are more likely when your hamstring muscles are weak and tight without proper warm-up. Having the quadriceps muscles in the front of the thigh overdeveloped compared to the hamstrings can cause imbalances that lend to hamstring tears too.

How Do You Treat A Hamstring Injury?

Two of the main treatment approaches for a hamstring strain have acronyms that when combined can sound a bit like some kind of a Korean dish. One of the acronyms is RICE. The “R” is for rest as in giving your muscle time to heal. The “I” is for ice as in icing it to reduce inflammation. “C” is not for cookie but for compression as in wrapping your thigh with bandages to reduce the swelling. “E” is for elevation as in keeping your leg higher than your heart level.

The other acronym is MEAT. The “M” stands for “movement,” as in moving the area to keep the blood flowing. The “E” is for exercise, as in exercises to strengthen the muscle. The “A” is for analgesia, as in using pain relievers. And the “T” is for therapy, as in physical therapy.

Surgery is usually not necessary unless it’s a Grade 3 strain where the muscle fibers or tendons need to be re-attached. Any accompanying bone fracture may require surgical repair too if there’s any indication that it won’t heal correctly on it’s own. There is currently no indication than Collins, Flowers or Okada will require surgery.

Instead, they have probably been getting a fair amount of RICE and MEAT for their “hammies,” which is a short nickname for hamstrings. It’s difficult to tell right now how long they will remain sidelined. Their hamstrings proved to be too weak for Week 2. We’ll have to see about Week 3 for all three.