Kerby Joseph knee injury update: Needling treatments & Lions NFL combine comments
What is Joseph's current status and outlook for the 2026 season?
With the NFL combine medicals underway this week, it’s time to do a medical checkup on one of the most important current Lions in safety Kerby Joseph.
First, let’s break down the treatment pictures he posted online including thoughts on efficacy, swelling, and whether it’s good or bad news for the 2026 season.
Then, let’s finish with an analysis of what Brad Holmes’ and Dan Campbell’s comments at the combine tell us about Joseph’s offseason status and the Lions safety position moving forward.
Kerby Joseph knee treatment pictures
(Credit @kevin_hls and @j_ekks on X for the tips.)
For a recap of what’s going on with Kerby Joseph’s knee, start here…
What is this treatment on Joseph’s knee?
The therapy is either acupuncture or dry needling. Either one can involve electrical stimulation as seen in the first picture.
What is the efficacy of these treatments?
Studies show that these kinds of needle treatments can help with pain. The major caveat with the studies is that the placebo effect is powerful when it comes to subjective measurements like pain. Doing a quality study that controls for the placebo effect with a needling procedure is difficult, if not impossible.
A placebo effect is still a real effect though, so there can be value in these treatments for pain even if it’s entirely placebo.
Whether the needling treatment helps with swelling is debatable. Even if it does help with swelling, it’s the cause of the swelling that is the issue.
Can these treatments help with healing?
This is where there will be some controversy and is really the key question for Kerby.