Turf ___ (football injury)

TOE

This injury often affects the big toe joint and can result from repeated pushing off the ground during play. Athletes might wear special plates in their cleats to prevent it.

This clue plays on the phrase "turf toe," a common football injury where the big toe joint gets sprained from pushing off hard against artificial turf. The blank hints at the missing word, and "toe" fits perfectly as both the body part and the end of the well-known term. It’s a straightforward fill-in-the-blank with no tricky wordplay—just a direct reference to sports medicine lingo.