It’s always interesting (to me at least) to see all the spin control from injured college players as we get closer to the NFL draft. Typically, the players (or more accurately, their agents) jump at any chance to downplay a college injury history and present the player as 100% healthy. Of course, this is often not the case. As a Pats fan, first round 2014 pick, defensive end Dominique Easley comes to mind as someone who was far from being finished with his history of knee injuries.
With all of that in mind, I thought it was odd to read about Georgia RB Todd Gurley and how his injury history is playing out in this year’s draft. Gurley tore his ACL back in November, and at this year’s NFL combine, he refused to let doctors examine his surgically-repaired left knee. Originally, this looked suspicious to me, and plenty of other crackpot bloggers. But the picture became clearer when Dr. James Andrews (bow down everybody) went into detail with ESPN’s Chris Mortensen. Good piece, and Dr. Andrews (or DrJA, as I call him… we’re tight) is usually pretty forthcoming about details. Sure enough, he drops a little knowledge bomb in that interview that really stood out. Andrews claims that Gurley is probably about six weeks ahead of schedule in his recovery. Nothing special there, as all NFL surgeries are instantly reported as successful and all players are somehow, inexplicably ahead of schedule. Except Andrews actually shows his work and tells us exactly why he feels Gurley is ahead of scheudle:
Gurley’s quad muscle is way ahead of what you would expect even at this stage and that’s vital to a good recovery, as you know
I can’t tell you how significant that quad strength is. I can’t tell you whether Gurley is actually ahead of schedule, or by how much. But it’s incredibly rare to get details like that to support medical opinions, so I will defer to Dr. Andrews and believe this one. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the most transparent medical information to come out of this year’s draft. Nice to finally get a little signal to go with the noise. Thanks DrJA! Now please tell us what the hell is up with Julius Thomas’ ankle!
