but yeah. going back to my ap statement. that was wrong. 95% are a success. so that’s not the exception. i was going overboard. but again. maybe not enough attention was focused on the possibility of failure. what is the recovery rate then? i’m sure the doctors went over this with bradford.

in the end. sam is a competitor. and he was probably thinking i can do it. 5% is an acceptable risk to me. well now. he’s that exception. now what is the prognosis for recovery for that second tear?

the one article said 14%. but again. most people don’t get the best surgeon to do their reconstructive surgery so maybe it’s even lower than that. and that doesn’t take into account if the injury was isolated or not. and most people probably don’t go through the extensive rehab process that these athletes do. but if sam wants to be sure of a complete recovery. he better take the two full years to recover. which seems to be the best option at this point. anytime you have to go in a second time. you’re doing more damage. healing of that area is going to take longer than before. so if two years is ideal for first reconstructive surgery, then second reconstructive surgery should be longer than that. and even then. how long is that joint going to last? i read somewhere that acl surgeries last on average about 10 years. well. is that for professional athletes or just the general population? if it’s for the general population, then for professional athletes, it goes way down i’m sure.

oh i didn’t either. i shouldn’t have said “shoulda been considered” because at the time i was happy with the qb situation and confident that bradford would come back healthy. i guess my main point was that i didn’t like any of the qbs in 2014 at all. they were all over-drafted. bortles for example should have been a mid-first round pick at best.

i’m hoping the 2015 class is better.

well this is an article on second acl surgeries and why they fail.

one other thing i want to add. a lot also depends on the extent of damage. bradford’s was isolated meaning the other ligaments and cartilage were apparently intact. so he has that going for him. alexander’s injury i believe was not isolated. it probably looked like a plate of spaghetti in there.

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22661.aspx

Sports medicine specialists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are leading a national study analyzing why a second surgery to reconstruct a tear in the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) carries a high risk of bad outcomes.

More than 200,000 ACL reconstruction surgeries are performed each year in the United States, and 1 percent to 8 percent fail for some reason. Most of those patients then opt to have their knee ligament reconstructed a second time, but the failure rate on those subsequent surgeries is almost 14 percent.

The Washington University group has received a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and is leading dozens of surgeons across the nation in one of the largest orthopedic, multicenter studies ever conducted. The MARS study (Mutlicenter ACL Revision Study) is comparing surgical techniques and analyzing outcomes for patients undergoing ACL surgery to learn why a subsequent reconstruction is more likely to fail than an initial ACL repair.

“If I reconstruct the ACL in your knee, and you go back to sports, and three years later you pivot on a basketball court and tear it again, that subsequent surgery often does not have results equal to the original surgery,” says Rick W. Wright, MD, the MARS study’s principal investigator. “In a previous study, we found that the strongest predictor for a bad outcome after ACL surgery was whether that surgery was the initial reconstruction or a subsequent procedure.”

Wright, professor of orthopaedic surgery, co-chief of Washington University’s Sports Medicine Service and an orthopedic surgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has helped recruit 87 surgeons from 52 centers to participate in the MARS study. All are sports medicine specialists who are members of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. Surgeons involved in the study include both academic physicians and those in private practice.

During ACL reconstruction, surgeons sometimes replace the torn knee ligament with a ligament transplanted from a cadaver. In other cases, the surgeon will move a piece of the hamstring muscle or the patellar tendon and attach it in place of the torn ligament.

Wright and his colleagues are recruiting patients for the MARS study who have a second tear of the ACL. They plan to enroll 1,000 patients at the various centers around the country and follow them for at least two years to identify predictors of problems after surgery.

Surgeons will note the condition of the knee and how the original surgery was performed to see whether that predicts problems with a subsequent operation. They also will make note of the surgical technique initially used and whether the ACL graft used in the initial reconstruction came from a cadaver, from the hamstring muscle or from the patellar tendon.

Surgeons also will compare rehabilitation techniques and whether particular approaches are related to better, or worse, outcomes. Patients also will be surveyed about their knee function, the general state of their health and their quality of life before and after a second ACL surgery.

Those participating in the MARS study must be older than 12, but there is no upper age limit.

“By definition, most of the people in the study will be active,” Wright says. “ Most are athletes who want to continue to compete, but the study also is open to those who just need knee surgery so they can get back to work.”

The ACL plays a crucial role in our ability to cut, jump, twist and change directions. Even in people who don’t compete in sports, ACL tears are related to having a knee give out, and when that happens, says Wright, it can damage the knee’s meniscus, the rubbery disc that cushions the knee and keeps it steady. If the knee gives out it also can tear cartilage in the joint, contribute to arthritis and increase the risk that an individual will someday require total knee replacement surgery.

then why are re-tears so frequent in the first year?

why?

you really think if the majority of re-tears happen in the first year that the knee has fully healed? it may have been revolutionized, but we know for a fact the nfl brings back players when they’re not completely healthy.

Well, I think the key for THIS YEAR was that none of the available guys were all that good.
Had there been a real stud in the draft, then given Sam’s injury history it should have been seriously considered. <y sense is that they DID consider it, but never saw a guy worth taking.

In response to your long term argument about the relative values of QBs and team building, I think I’ll just say this.

Very few QBs drafted high are worth the hype.

But, occasionally a guy does make a difference and raises a team. Both Luck and RG III did.

And good teams ARE held back by lousy QBing. Hell, our fine 70s and 80s teams were.

So, in the end, I’d say it comes down to genuine quality. A truly special QB is damn rare. Don’t trade away the farm seeking one in bets … but do take one if you get the chance.

yup. but i would add. even if there was a prospect like a flacco or a roethlisberger. even that shoulda been considered. but there wasn’t even that. maybe bortles? i don’t know.

hopefully, in 2015, there will be some prospects in the middle of the first round.

he is at a special risk for another though. it’s a fact. a second tear has a worse prognosis. from every single piece of evidence i’ve read. that is the case.

I am not criticizing St. Louis doctors or Bradford’s surgeon. Early return has become the industry standard. In a perfect world, an athlete would sit out two seasons before playing, but this is simply not practical.

The statistics show Bradford has an uphill battle ahead of him. 95 percent of athletes return to the same level of play after their first ACL injury. That rate of return drops considerably after a second same-knee ACL tear. Given this injury is likely isolated, I believe Bradford still has an excellent chance to return despite the longer odds.

it’s gonna take a year. at least. the rate of return drops considerably according to this guy. so my guess is it’s a longer time for recovery.

and to be fair to bradford. he might really want to consider taking longer than that.

yeah. rams will be fine. it’s bradford who your heart goes out to.

rams don’t need another kurt warner to come in and save this team. they need a caretaker. that’s it.

honestly. regarding the rams. i’m more worried about trumaine than i am bradford. that secondary looks not good. not good at all.

yeah. you don’t need a great qb for this team to do well. just a competent one. so there’s that.

maybe we could get jeff hostetler? hehe.

i think more than anything you feel bad for sam. he worked hard to come back and then that happens.

as far as the rams. well as far as offenses go. i’d have to think this is one of the more qb-friendly offenses. rams can still be competitive. well. maybe not. that secondary looks awful right now… sigh.

i think the year recovery period is due to a second injury. which makes sense to me. a second injury to the same ligament is going to be harder to overcome.

but then you take into account a pre-surgery rehab process which he’ll likely have to go through. you don’t just continually repair the same ligament and expect it to get easier. this will take longer than the previous one. i mean he tore it twice in a span of what? 10 months? just looking at articles on the internet. the risk of failure doubles on a second repair. so you better believe they’re gonna take longer to make sure that it’s good. obviously we don’t know the extent of the tear. so it’s just guessing. i’m probably a little bit more negative due to the fact that we just found out about this.

but the more i think about it. the rams might just have to cut him. i don’t know. i don’t know what makes more financial sense at this point.

i didn’t even realize this but one year?? he won’t even be ready by next year. or it’d really be pushing it. my guess is he’ll be ready by game 4 or game 5.

but even plunkett was able to play more than 1 season in a row.

for me. he’s the next sam bowie. some promise. wasn’t gonna live up to his draft status but still alright. except he couldn’t stay healthy.

i don’t care if he’s taken big hits. big hits is not what i’m talking about. shoot i can get in a car crash and walk away from it. stress is put on the knees and joints all the time in football. his ligaments. the ones that hold his shoulders, knees, ankles, and whatever else together. they just can’t take the stress of an nfl game. it’s not about awkward hits anymore. four times in five years? it’s not just about bad luck anymore. he’s injury prone. it might not happen on the next hit or the hit after that. but at some point. he’s gonna break something again.