Richards was left coughing up blood after colliding with Craig Bolton and Carlton's Brendan Fevola in a marking contest late in the 51-point reversal to the Blues.
The 26-year-old suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal chest bleeding.
Following the incident, the former Bomber was taken to a local hospital where he had a chest drain inserted into his lung to reinflate it.
Richards is still in hospital in Melbourne but is expected to be released some time this week.
“He really is a courageous player but unfortunately things like that happen from time to time and I'm sure Teddy would agree with that,” Roos said.
“But it was a courageous act and the real positive is that he's okay and hopefully he's up and about soon.”
Roos said that most of the players would not have realised the severity of the injury as Richards walked off the park.
“We could see it though as he walked off with blood coming from his mouth,” he said.
Roos added that it was unlikely the versatile defender would be seen playing in the red and white this season.
One ready-made replacement for Richards would be Leo Barry. However, it's unlikely that the 32-year-old will return in the short term at least.
Barry, on the long-term injury list this season, played 70 minutes with the Swans reserves on the weekend. He picked up 11 touches, took eight marks and kicked three goals in his role as a forward.
Roos said his defender, who hasn't played a senior game in 2009, needed more time to regain his match fitness following a knee injury earlier in the year.
“He's still a little way away from playing,” said Roos, who ruled Barry out of this Sunday's clash with the Demons in Canberra. And Roos added that while finals footy is now virtually out of the equation, the club's stated youth policy would not become skewed towards blooding too many kids over the remainder of the season.
“Over the next six weeks we'd want to keep that balance of young and old sort of thing,” Roos said. “It'll probably be young guy out, young guy in, older guy out, older guy in.”
