This is what I was concerned about with Brooks direct knee impact injury. A patella (knee cap) bone bruise can becoming a nagging injury leaving the player unable to participate due to lack of range of motion and often very intense pain. Furthermore, it is not unusual to be associated with damage to the adjacent bursae, fat, patellar ligament or the posterior cartilage surface of the patella. An accompanying small chip fracture or stress fracture of the patella is also not uncommon. Especially, even if a tiny stress fracture is present, if not addressed with an 8-10 week healing rehab period, there is long term concern that another blow to the knee could break the knee cap in two because of the quadriceps muscle pulling from above while the patella tendon pulling from below during flexion of the knee. This would require major surgery with at least a 3-4 month period prior to returning to play.
An MRI will have been already performed to diagnose the bone bruise. The Texans would know at this point if and how much collateral damage may exist. Patella bone bruises alone are bad enough in that depending on how severe, it could take months (up to a year in some cases) to completely heal, barring further trauma to the area. Rest and rehab of several weeks would not be out of order for even a modest bone bruise. However, as it stands now, if that is the case, I would guess that the Texans would push Wade to the limits of his pain threshold in order to get him back on the field as soon as possible. In doing so, it would not be surprising to see a significant performance drop off and/or setback.
In that the reports only say bone bruise of the "knee," this could also apply to bone bruise to the lower femur bone or upper tibia bone which are considered part of the knee. When bone bruises occur in load-bearing bones such as the tibia and femur, avoidance of weight-bearing for significant periods (depending on severity of the bruise) is extremely important to reduce the extension of the damage and significant prolongation of recovery.