It's the timeline that concerns me. I have serious doubts that 12 months is enough for a 2nd ACL tear.
Echoing
@Yamahopper , well written post. Imho, his prospects for a return to the Rams are already slim, but non-existent if the recovery timeline is more than a year. Is there something you've read that suggests a longer timeline for recovery on a 2nd tear? Or anythiing specific to Bradford for recovery time? I'm not finding anything yet. Everything I'm reading is still very general including on James Andrews site.
http://www.theandrewsinstitute.com/News/Orthopaedics/Article.aspx?id=445887
I did find this which seemed encouraging, and was from a knowledgeable source even if it wasn't from Andrews himself.
:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/spo...cle_09172407-a4bd-5819-90b0-edea14ead707.html
John E. Hoover: Hey Sam Bradford, here are some encouraging words from an ACL surgeon and your predecessor
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St. Louis Rams quarterback Sam Bradford grimaces after being hit by Cleveland Browns defensive lineman Armonty Bryant in the first quarter of a preseason game on Aug. 23, 2014. DAVID RICHARD/AP
Posted: Monday, August 25, 2014 1:47 pm |
Updated: 8:25 pm, Mon Aug 25, 2014.
By JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Columnist |
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Quick, name an Oklahoma Sooners quarterback who won a Heisman Trophy and a Big 12 Conference championship and then lost a national championship to an SEC team on SEC turf who also suffered two major knee injuries.
Pretty exclusive club. Sadly, Jason White finally has company.
But Tulsa orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brad Boone, one of the nation’s preeminent knee mechanics, gives a startlingly encouraging outlook that Sam Bradford’s second ACL injury in less than a year will not be a career-ender.
“The success rate of his next surgery will be as good as his first,” Boone told the Tulsa World on Monday. “He’ll make it back.”
And with that, the 2003 Heisman winner offers some seriously sage advice to the 2008 Heisman winner.
“I would tell him to have the surgery, do the rehab and continue to work hard like he has ever since he’s played football, to continue to give it a shot,” White said in a phone conversation Monday, two days after Bradford was lost for the season with a reinjury of last year’s torn ACL. “If his heart and love are still in the game, continue to give it a shot and see what happens.
“At the end of the day, at the end of his career, he can look back and say, ‘You know what? I tried. I decided to come back from my second surgery and I was successful,’ or, ‘It just didn’t work out.’ You know, leave no question if he does work through it and rehab and try to come back and play.
“If he were to just hang it up — which I can’t imagine him doing — he would always have that question in his mind, you know, ‘I wonder if I had had the surgery and rehabbed and come back, would I still be playing?’ ”
Bradford’s injury is believed to be an isolated ACL tear, meaning his cartilage structures (medial meniscus, lateral meniscus) and other ligaments (lateral collateral, medial collateral, posterior cruciate) — are undamaged. The anterior cruciate ligament is the central and strongest ligament in the knee that holds together the femur (thigh bone) and tibia (shin bone).
In modern ACL reconstruction, tunnels are drilled into the femur and tibia (arthroscopically at the origin and insertion of the torn ACL), through which a tendon graft from the athlete’s knee (the patellar tendon or hamstring tendons) or similar tendons from a cadaver are passed and secured with absorbable bone screws, thus recreating a new ACL. Recovery time is usually between 6-12 months, depending on the rehab process.
“As far as putting another ACL graft in his knee in a good way and recovering, I think his success rate would be as good as it would be with his primary, which is about 95 percent success rate,” Boone said. “But, it’s not 100. I mean, he’s not the first athlete that’s re-torn his ACL the first year or two back.”
Although their magic number is two, there’s a major difference between Bradford and White: White injured his left knee in 2001, then his right in 2002. Bradford has injured his left knee twice.
Both of Bradford’s injuries involved contact — a moderate hit from the front and side this time while planting and throwing, and an awkward tackle from behind while running last time — while both of White’s were non-contact injuries. Still, White’s knees sustained far more collateral damage than Bradford’s, and advancements in surgical techniques during the past decade should give Bradford more hope that he can return fairly soon and at nearly full strength.
“I think when you re-do an ACL that’s been done in a good way, like (by) Dr. (James) Andrews — the tunnels where that ACL was placed, I’m sure, were in the right position. To revise that ACL is much easier when the first surgery was done in a good way and done correctly. There are more surgeons in America that are able to do really technically good ACL reconstructions, and we don’t see as many problems with tunnels that are malpostitioned or technically poor grafts. We don’t see the technical issues that led to failures of ACLs 20 years ago. Revising Sam Bradford’s, you would use the same tunnels.
“Now, you’re gonna have to find a different graft. There are other graft options that would be very good and would be close to what he had in his patellar tendon on that knee. He can take his other patellar tendon. He probably won’t want to do that. (That’s two simultaneous major knee surgeries; a challenging recovery). He can use a cadaver. And he can use the hamstring tendon with or without a cadaver as well. There are graft options that are still very good. I think revising Sam’s ACL, having been done by Andrews, would be fairly easy, really. It would almost be like the primary (surgery).”
Andrews pioneered knee reconstruction for athletes and has been the leading figure in the field for three decades. Boone has served fellowships under Andrews’ tutelage.
“Technically, it’s not really gonna be a challenge to redo that ACL,” Boone said. “I mean, I do ‘em all the time and it’s not a challenge. If the tunnels are a little bit off and you’ve got to do some things, it could be more of a challenge. But with Sam’s, I think it’s gonna be more straightforward. It’s just gonna be finding a graft.”
At OU, Bradford had the reputation of being the hardest-working player on the team. The assumption then is that that work ethic guided him through his rehab — in other words, he didn’t slack off, despite ongoing reports that he was behind schedule and, after 10 months, simply wasn’t ready to return to play.
“I’m sure he did everything perfectly,” Boone said. “The kid’s a great kid. I mean, he had all the support and help and trainers and therapists and conditioning coaches. I’m sure he did everything perfectly. Just one of those things that happens.”
Call it unlucky or snake-bit or injury prone or whatever, White knows that feeling. He lived many, many dark days all alone in the athletic training room.
“I try not to think about that,” White said with a laugh. “But even now, I wouldn’t do it any different if I could do it all again. Because those dark days in the training room, in that building all alone, I think it made me a better person. It made me a better player. And it made me realize, if you want something, you’ve got to work hard to go get it. So I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I just don’t reflect on those memories because, you know, you’re right, they were dark.
“When you’re driving to the training room to do rehab, you’re always thinking, ‘Am I doing this for nothing? Am I going up here and working out for two hours for nothing?’ But pushing through that, overcoming that, it sure paid off at the end.”
A year after his second comeback, White won the Heisman, then led the Sooners to two straight national title game appearances. His NFL dreams never got going because, after mini-camp with the Kansas City Chiefs and training camp with the Tennessee Titans in 2005, he found he couldn’t get under center to receive a snap without debilitating pain.
There’s another big difference. Bradford got his big NFL payday as the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft — a guaranteed $50 million — before his knee was ruined. White never got paid.
But that’s OK, White said. He still wouldn’t trade his pain. At 34, he now realizes how rare and special were his deeds.
“Billy (Sims) and Steve (Owens) remind me of it all the time,” White said of his best pals and 1977 and 1969 OU Heisman winners. “Because they both had ACL surgery and that’s what ended their career (both were running backs with the Detroit Lions). They always bring up the fact that I had two ACLs before I won the Heisman and how blessed I was.
“I look back at my career and I’m just so happy I have been blessed to play on such great teams and play for such a great coach and play at such a great university with such unbelievable fans.
“I just feel horrible for Sam.”
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