Credit: BuffaloBills.com

Wide Receiver Stevie Johnson has missed a lot of time during the Buffalo Bills’ offseason workouts with an apparent back injury. And now, thanks to Tim Graham of The Buffalo News, we know the full details of exactly what was plaguing Buffalo’s number one wideout.

The three-time 1,000-yard receiver told the News that the back strain that everyone believed that he had was much more than that, he actually suffered a broken back.

During the filming of a workout session for BuffaloBills.com in March, Johnson said he fractured the L-5 vertebra.

From The Buffalo News:

“It got to the point where, ‘It’s got to be something more than a strain or something’ because every time I sit down it’s hurting,” Johnson said. “Every time I stand up it’s hurting. I lay down, it’s hurting. I went through rehab and it wasn’t helping.

So I got the MRI, and it was a slight fracture.”

The video was apparently to prove that Johnson does workout in the offseason in addition to the basketball and running that he said he does while on with Jim Rome during Super Bowl week.

Maybe this is why Johnson didn’t do serious training in the offseason; maybe people should just leave well enough alone.

Johnson is back on the field with his teammates for mandatory minicamp, and is expected to be full go for training camp when it starts in late July at St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, NY.