Ryan Shazier has been in the hospital since sustaining a spinal cord injury on Monday in the Pittsburgh Steelers victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. So far, the news on his condition has been promising. He texted his teammate, linebacker Vince Williams, from the hospital last night, and the early reports on the actual injury say it is a spinal cord concussion, which has a much shorter recovery time than anyone could have hoped for based on what the injury looked like. Now, though, we have the most concrete news of all on what is going on with Shazier.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Shazier has shown promising signs so far. Most importantly: there is movement in his lower extremities, a very big deal after reports on Monday indicated that he didn't have feeling in his lower body. The next 24-48 hours are going to be key for Shazier, Rapoport says, but at least for now, he seems to be on the right track as far as recovering goes.

Considering how bad this looked on the broadcast and what fans initially thought might be the case, this is an absolutely huge break for Shazier and the Steelers. It seemed to be an absolute certainty that Shazier would not only miss the rest of the season, but had suffered life-altering damage that went well beyond football on Monday night, the sort of injury fans would remember forever.

But when former Steeler Tommy Maddox suffered a similar injury, he missed only one game. Obviously no two spinal injuries are the same, but the early prognosis has been about as positive as possible. The first priority is obviously Shazier's health, and he should take as much time as is necessary to feel up to full strength before even considering returning to the football field, but it looked like the team wouldn't have their best defensive player for the rest of the year as recently as last night. Now, there is at least reason for optimism.

Keep up to date with the 6X Super Bowl champions! Click here to receive your FREE newsletter!