Cardinals TE Carted Off With Scary Neck Injury vs Colts

The Arizona Cardinals again have a tight end being carted off.

Jul 29, 2025; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals tight end Travis Vokolek (81) during training camp at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The Arizona Cardinals saw tight end Travis Vokolek carted off with a neck injury in the first quarter of their Week 6 matchup against the Indianapolis Colts.

The injury occurred on the Cardinals' opening kickoff return. Vokolek had the stretcher out for him almost immediately and was surrounded by Arizona teammates before he went off the field giving a thumbs up.

Here’s the broadcast showing what happened to #AZCardinals TE Travis Vokolek on the kickoff.

They brought the stretcher out for him. Not sure what happened. pic.twitter.com/xQBDiLDxTa

— Donnie Druin (@DonnieDruin) October 12, 2025

Team beat reporter Darren Urban said Vokolek is alert and moving his extremities.

More on Cardinals TE Travis Vokolek

With tight end Tip Reiman already out, Vokolek was projected to step into a more prominent role within the tight end room. While Trey McBride and Elijah Higgins are mostly pass-catching tight ends, Vokolek was set to be a key piece in Arizona's rushing attack.

"That's a big loss but you have to overcome it," Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon said of Reiman's loss.

"(I have) full confidence in obviously (TE) Trey (McBride) and (TE) Elijah (Higgins). (TE) Travis (Vokolek) came in and he's been playing extremely well on fourth down and he'll come in and do a good job for us. (We) definitely have to pick up the slack. We've had guys go out of the lineup here, it's a tough loss.”

The Cardinals haven't quite been able to run the ball to their liking in 2025, which has helped the Cardinals obtain a three-game losing streak after starting the year out 2-0.

"Obviously, disappointed about the game. (I) talked to the team today about it. (We) showed them the things that we needed to show and correct them. I expect the right response. They had a good response today. As good as you can have with losing a game like that. They were down in the dumps a little bit, but then we got on to business, got the things corrected and now we have to move on here and go play a really good football team in Indy," said Gannon.

“... They'll get going. I truly believe in the people that we got in the locker room. I really do. The coaches, the players. We'll stick together. We've been through adversity at different points of our time here. I guess this is kind of a new year, obviously, but just the last couple games here, they haven't gone our way. There's a lot of reasons why that has happened, but we got the right leaders in the locker room. The players will rally around doing the right things; team over you, urgency to get better and that's what we'll do. If we didn't have the right people in the locker room, I would be on red alert to be honest with you right now. Just from experience of being in the NFL, you can see this go bad a lot of times. I'm not worried about it.”