So many choices for that post title, and now I’m sort of sad that I could only go with one. Can you really go wrong with groin stories? I’ll have a clearer answer on that after I give a toast at an upcoming wedding where I’m the best man.
Yesterday, Jaguars receiver Cecil Shorts said something that I found a little alarming. In fairness to Shorts, it’s possible that he was just being conservative in how he described his recovery, but players are rarely conservative when talking about themselves, so I don’t think I’m wrong to wonder if something is wrong here. But first let me bring you up to speed on Cecil Shorts. In 2013, Shorts made the most of an ugly QB situation in Jacksonville, but his season was cut short by a groin injury. He missed the final three games and had surgery to repair a sports hernia.
Let’s talk about sports hernias. I love them. Part of my love is due to the great terminology. Sometimes they’re called, “sportsman’s hernias,” which somehow sounds dignified, as though the injury is being discussed among quietly affluent gentlemen at a British hunting club of some sort. Sometimes they’re called, “Gilmore groin,” which sounds like either a funny dance or an even funnier Garbage Pail Kid. But for my money, the humor goes even further into the actual injury itself. Sports hernia is a term used to describe an injury that has many of the symptoms of a regular hernia, but without the actual injury to the abdominal wall that makes a hernia a hernia. Imagine having all the symptoms of a fractured arm, but without an actual fracture, and then just calling it a, “Sports Fracture.” There’s something strange about that, right? To make things even better, nobody can really agree on exactly what a sports hernia is or how common it really is. Depending on who’s talking, this injury is either rare or the most common of all groin injuries. If you don’t believe me (I don’t blame you), read up on it here at Medscape, a good medical reference source for some sports injuries. Also, the term sports hernia was pretty much invented in 1980, same as the first real Rubik’s Cube as we know it, so that’s a plus.
But I should get back to Cecil Shorts. In an interview with the Florida Times-Union yesterday, Shorts said this:
“I’m on the right path where I’m able to run without any pain. I still have some work to do and I’m not 100 percent yet, but I’m looking to get there soon. Now, I have to get my strength back and confidence back.”
There’s some good stuff in there if you want to go digging. Cecil Shorts had his sports hernia surgery back on December 19th, 2013. When that occurred, everyone had their own ideas of what his recovery timetable might look like. I found some typically generic media estimates along the lines of, “four to six weeks,” but the most interesting estimate might have come from Shorts himself. On December 24th, the Florida Times-Union printed this:
“Receiver Cecil Shorts was in the locker room after the game and said he will need six weeks of rehab after having sports hernia surgery.”
So let’s recap. Shorts had surgery in December. Then, also in December, Shorts said he would need six weeks of rehab. Now here we are, April 24th, a full 18 weeks later, and Shorts is saying he is not 100%. Yes, 18 weeks. We have tripled Shorts’ own six week estimate, and he still admits he’s not ready.
What would be a normal rehab for this injury? Good question (I’m glad I asked). The current sports media estimates (which I criticized here) tend to fall between three to six weeks. I thought it was interesting that, in that same Medscape article I referenced earlier, there is a sentence dealing with exactly this issue of a return to play timeline:
“Over 9 years, Gilmore repaired 360 injuries with a technique that used 6-layered reinforcement of the weakened transversalis fascia. Approximately 97% of his patients returned to competitive sports by the 10th week after postoperative care.”
Note that the Gilmore they refer to there was the leading doctor that got things started in this field, so he’s a good source on the subject. If you want to skip all the medical jargon, they’re basically saying that almost everyone returned to sports by 10 weeks after surgery.
Do you want more evidence that something might be up with Shorts’ recovery? We can look at a few other NFL players and make some comparisons. As always, there are all sorts of problems in comparing injuries between different players. I get that, and I’ve never shied away from admitting that. But, even with those limitations and pitfalls, let’s take a look. RB Chris Ivory missed seven weeks after having sports hernia surgery in 2011. WR Louis Murphy missed seven weeks for the same, also in 2011. In 2012, WR Greg Jennings missed eight weeks with a sports hernia. It should be noted that with Jennings, he actually only missed three weeks after the surgery, as he wasn’t diagnosed correctly for the first few weeks of the injury (as is common with sports hernias). Also, while Jennings returned to play after only missing three weeks, he was pretty limited and didn’t seem like his old self until about seven weeks post surgery. You see a pattern here? Of these three, they all seem to return about seven or eight weeks after the surgery. I have other examples of sports hernia surgery recoveries, but most of the other ones happen during the offseason where there isn’t the same clean data to evaluate when the player fully recovered.
When talking about Shorts and his injury, the big elephant in the room should be former Dallas Cowboys’ defensive tackle Jay Ratliff. Ratliff missed the final six weeks of 2012 with a sports hernia. Ratliff’s injury didn’t respond well to his surgery though, and he ended up not playing the first 12 games of 2013 either. By the time Ratliff finally played again (with a different team no less), he had missed one entire calendar year! I am not saying that Shorts is in the same groin-boat here, but I always think it’s worth mentioning the players that lagged far behind those simple injury estimates.
Now let me be clear. I don’t know anything specific about Shorts’ groin. There is a chance that Shorts is doing just fine. There is a chance that he is entirely recovered physically, and that he’s simply saying that he needs some practice to really get back into the groove. That would make sense. But I only have what’s in that interview to go by right now. Like I said before, players don’t tend to be conservative with their estimates, so when Shorts comes right out and explicitly says that he’s not 100%, I start to wonder if there’s more to the picture that we’re not seeing. You can rest assured that I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes on Cecil Shorts’ groin.
