Mind of Mansion - Broncos Team Doctor Forecasts Injury Returns: Mahomes, Nabers and More
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 8 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Jun 18, 2026
Published
Thu, June 18, 2026
17
Player insights
8
Players mentioned
Topics
Christian McCaffreyAlec PiercePatrick MahomesBrian Thomas Jr.Justin FieldsJonathon BrooksJulio JonesMarvin Harrison Jr.
Player analysis
Player insights
Alec Pierce
NegativeInjury0:43
Pierce had ankle surgery in early spring with an initial 3-5 month timeline, but has missed both training camp and preseason, with week 1 availability still uncertain.
Insight pagePositiveInjury0:44
Pierce had lingering ankle issues from last season that required surgery and PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injection; the surgery was described as a cleanup procedure, though the exact nature of the work remains unclear.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:45
The timeline for Pierce's ankle recovery is uncertain; while ankle surgery is typically less concerning than knee or shoulder injuries, the fact that recovery timelines keep pushing back suggests caution is warranted.
Insight pageBrian Thomas Jr.
PositiveInjury24:18
Brian Thomas is having a healthy offseason and can focus on building rapport with Trevor Lawrence rather than spending time with trainers, contrasting with last year when he felt constantly injured.
Insight pagePositiveProjection27:05
Dr. Ballard suggests that if Brian Thomas is healthy coming into the season, you wouldn't be surprised if he goes from having an inefficient 2025 season to being back to efficient Brian Thomas this year.
Insight pageChristian McCaffrey
PositiveInjury23:55
McCaffrey is having a healthy offseason, which allows him to focus on strength and conditioning and technique rather than recovery and rehabilitation like in previous years.
Insight pagePositiveProjection29:11
When McCaffrey plays a full 17-game season, he is the anchor of championship fantasy rosters; his injury history shows stark patterns of either playing 17 games or missing significant time.
Insight pagePositiveInjury30:09
McCaffrey's injury history shows a pattern of lower body, soft tissue injuries including Achilles, calf, thigh, hamstring, and hip issues that have set him back over the years.
Insight pagePositiveUsage35:08
Last year, McCaffrey played 17 games and set a career-high 311 rush attempts, demonstrating his heavy workload when healthy.
Insight pageJonathon Brooks
PositiveRole24:10
Jonathan Brooks is mentioned in transition context, though the specific insight is unclear from the available transcript excerpt.
Insight pageJulio Jones
PositiveProjection0:41
Julio Jones returned from a Jones fracture (fifth metatarsal stress fracture) to put up 1400+ yards, demonstrating that elite playmakers can recover from this injury; if Julio Jones can do it, Roma Dunze can too.
Insight pageJustin Fields
PositiveProjection0:30
In dynasty leagues, it's recommended to have Justin Fields on rosters for at least the first three weeks as a contingency for Mahomes' potential delayed return.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:34
Justin Fields is expected to start week 1 if Mahomes is not ready, making him a valuable backup option early in the season.
Insight pageMarvin Harrison Jr.
NegativeInjury25:03
Marvin Harrison Jr. is constantly having to manage injuries that are not fully healed from last year, which is holding him back from the practice field during the offseason.
Insight pagePatrick Mahomes
PositiveInjury0:26
Mahomes suffered an ACL and LCL tear in late December and underwent reconstruction surgery; typical recovery is 8-12 months, which would put him potentially available around week 4 rather than week 1.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:29
Based on 8-12 month ACL recovery timeline from December injury, Mahomes could theoretically be available by week 4, though the analyst emphasizes the distinction between being healed and being football-ready.
Insight pageNegativeProjection0:31
The analyst predicts Mahomes will not be under center week 1, instead targeting week 4 as a more realistic return timeline.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
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0:58Hey, this is Wyatt Bertalone and you listen to the Power Father.
1:02This is the Mind of Mansion podcast and today a special event.
1:06We have Dr. Brad Ballard. He is the assistant physician, the team physician with the Denver Broncos.
1:12He prior was the assistant team physician for the Dallas Mavericks.
1:16And one of the things I like about his practice is that in his clinical practice, he and his colleagues like to utilize cutting edge regenerative medical techniques.
1:25Welcome to the show, Dr. Ballard. Thanks for having me.
1:29I appreciate it. A lot of us that play fantasy football are constantly monitoring the injury reports.
1:35It is one of the more popular activities in the morning, at night, all of us playing fantasy sports.
1:41We're just always watching anything with injuries. It's very, very actionable.
1:45It's something that so many people are talking about.
1:48And also just when you're hanging out with your buddies.
1:52And so it's like, hey, yeah, you've got to watch out for him.
1:56Or did you know he's playing through this? Or it's always super fascinating.
2:01We're like, hey, did you know that Tony Saragusa played his entire career without an ACL?
2:06Welcome to the program. Really great to talk to you.
2:10And how did you get started with sports medicine?
2:13No. So first of all, thanks for having me.
2:16I appreciate you inviting me to the show. And hopefully we can provide some good value and insight to your listeners.
2:23Yeah. You know, I started out as an athlete.
2:26So grew up in the Houston area. And basketball was my sport.
2:30When I was growing up, it was either NBA or bust.
2:34And obviously the NBA didn't happen. But I was an injured athlete.
2:38I was kind of in and out of the training room.
2:42And I had a specific knee injury in my senior year of high school.
2:47I tore my meniscus in my knee, which is a flap of cartilage that kind of creates a little bit of the
2:54pad inside of the knee, a little bit of the cushion.
2:58The meniscus is not a ligament. A lot of people talk about the meniscus like it's an ACL, like it's an MCL.
3:06No, it's a very specific bit of tissue. That's right.
3:09So inside of the knee. So the knee is made up of three bones, the kneecap, the thigh bone, which is the
3:17femur, and then the tibia, which is the lower leg bone.
3:20And in between the two large bones, which is the thigh bone, the femur and the tibia, which is the leg bone,
3:28there's a couple of pads of tissue that almost kind of create a cushion in between that area.
3:34But it also serves to help with some stability.
3:37And I tore my meniscus and I started having what we call mechanical symptoms, which is, you know, I was having catching and locking.
3:46My knee would literally lock up when I would just be sitting down.
3:50It was extremely painful. So I walked into a clinic, much like the clinic that I work at now, a bunch of jerseys on the wall.
3:59At the time, my surgeon was one of the team physicians for the Houston Rockets.
4:04So this was around the time you can imagine when, you know, they had just won the championship a couple of years in a row in the 90s.
4:14And I was in awe walking in that specific clinic, got my surgery done.
4:19And it just left an impression on me when I went to college.
4:23My brother was a nurse. I started working in the hospital, had some mentors who, you know, encouraged me, you know, you can go into medicine.
4:32I said, you know, if I'm going to go into medicine, the only thing I'm really going to do is I'm going
4:40to do what I experienced in the past is work in a sports medicine clinic and work with athletes.
4:46And that was really kind of how everything started, went to med school.
4:51And then after med school was was blessed to be able to do my residency in sports medicine fellowship.
4:57And immediately upon finishing my training, I started out as one of the assistant team physicians for the Dallas Mavericks.
5:04This was the year right after they won the championship back in 2011.
5:09That was the start. And then, you know, fast forward, I've been able to build a practice in Dallas, transition my practice here in Denver.
5:17Now I wanted the assistants to the Denver Broncos and a couple other professional sports teams.
5:23And and so I'm still having fun. So that's good.
5:26Clyde Drexler, cool guy. Funny, interesting story. Never got a chance to meet Clyde.
5:31Seems like a cool guy. I never heard a bad thing.
5:35Being from a Houston area, everybody who met him had great things.
5:39But he went to the same high school that my aunt taught like algebra.
5:44She taught him for a couple of years whenever he was at Sterling High School in Houston.
5:50Said he was great, you know, good student, good athlete.
5:53But everybody has great things to say about him.
5:56Yeah, man. Those Houston Rockets teams, those were fun.
5:59A lot of fantasy gamers have an affinity, like I said, like moths to a flame for informed analysis about injuries and injury recovery.
6:08You'd be surprised. I mean, you don't necessarily have to have like the deepest or the most impressive wall of credentials on
6:15social media, where if you put out something that is reasonable, well informed with, you know, at least some background expertise, you're
6:23going to get a lot of engagement. The fantasy sports community in particular is going to consume that.
6:29And there's going to be and there's going to be Reddit threads posted about it, breaking it down.
6:35So I said, you know what? Let's actually go to an official source, especially the injuries that we've seen to NFL players
6:43in the last, say, 12 months, even going back further with someone like Tank Dell.
6:48Yes. But also, you know, before we get into specific injuries to like a Tank Dell or an Alec Pierce, some elite
6:55neighbors, I do want to talk about the current strength and conditioning regimen that so many NFL players have now, where we
7:03continue to be surprised when players play at a high level at age 29, age 30.
7:09I remember last night watching the World Cup. This is Lionel Messi's final game, right?
7:14Or this is Lionel Messi's final World Cup. This is Cristiano Ronaldo's final World Cup.
7:19And I'm thinking, is it like that you're assuming it is, but this is not like the World Cup that I remember 20, 30 years ago.
7:28You have players that are playing out until age 40 in soccer that was just unheard of, especially for forwards to play at that level.
7:36So and then you see, OK, here's what Cristiano Ronaldo is doing to keep his body in the proper condition.
7:43And then what happens? Oh, Messi goes out hat trick.
7:47And I'm like, are we sure we're not going to see him in four years?
7:52It seems like you're jumping ahead a little bit.
7:55But what is the difference? Just going back from the 90s to today with how these players conduct their strength and conditioning and help to avoid injuries?
8:04Yeah, I mean, I think we've just learned more over time, specifically in terms of just being intentional around a customized focus workout plan, focus, customized recovery.
8:14And guys are just paying more attention to it.
8:17I think, you know, you talk about back in the 90s or, you know, quote unquote, back in the day.
8:24I don't know if guys paid attention to their bodies as much.
8:28I don't think they looked at their physique and physical well-being as, you know, part of the entire professional makeup of what they do.
8:36I don't know if they looked at their body as like this asset that allows them to be, you know, kind of their own business.
8:45Global icons? Yeah, well, global icons. But at the end of the day, like, you know, they're going to be able to
8:52make money, generate income with their body. So I don't know if guys really thought about it, if athletes really thought about it that way.
9:01But it's a real thing. I mean, particularly when you look at, you know, the LeBron James and like you said, the
9:08Lionel Messi's and these folks who are playing so deep into their career, you know.
9:14Sometimes we forget about LeBron James. Yeah, yeah. What a freak he is.
9:18Right. Because we've gotten so used to just him being, you know, late 30s, early 40s, like, you know, playing.
9:25But, you know, how is he doing here? Well, you often hear this this idea of people and who knows what the number is.
9:33They're like, oh, he spends a million dollars on his body a year or he does this.
9:39Really, what we're saying is that LeBron James is very intentional about treating his body and about having a plan for making
9:47sure that he's not only getting strong, but that the injuries and the wear and tear, he pays attention to that stuff.
9:54And so there's some customized workout and conditioning. I'm sure, you know, I can't speak because I'm not in, you know, in that locker room at all.
10:04But but I would not be surprised if any type of wear and tear that he has, they work around it.
10:11They don't just say, well, you know, just keep running through it and just kind of no pain, no gain.
10:18That's not necessarily the case. So guys, I think, are just a lot more intentional.
10:23We know a lot more about recovery, you know, for for so long.
10:27I think athletes and we still see this mentality in athletes.
10:31It's like I mentioned, no pain, no gain or just go hard.
10:35You know, if it hurts, just just go through it.
10:39Just keep working through it. That's just not the case.
10:42What we're seeing now is that recovery is so big when it comes to performance that one of the things I'm constantly
10:50educating and encouraging, even our weekend warriors and patients in the clinic is so that you don't burn out, so that you
10:57don't fatigue, so that you don't risk injury. You have to start looking at recovery as part of your workout plan.
11:05It is not something that's drawing away from you.
11:08It's not something that's taking away from your performance.
11:11It's actually adding to your performance by putting recovery and rest into it.
11:15I was just talking to someone this morning. It's interesting.
11:19He's a trainer, and he was telling me he was like, you know, I was having all these injuries, and he took two weeks off from bench pressing.
11:28And upon coming back that first week, he set his bench max than he ever did.
11:34And he was like, I was surprised I did after two weeks rest.
11:38I was like, it's probably because you needed it.
11:41Yeah. So we know more. Guys are much more intentional about it.
11:46And I think guys see that they can play longer if they pay more attention to their body and have a plan
11:53around not only how to work out, but how to recover.
11:57This episode is brought to you by Fox One.
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12:50Compatibility and availability varies 18+. Can these guys do additional enhanced strength and conditioning activities, treatments, whatever it is, in the offseason
12:57that they can't do during the season because of the league rules?
13:02Are you saying can they do, are there some things that are illegal in terms of league that they can't do during the regular season?
13:10Whatever the rules are, yeah. I mean, look, I think most of these guys have a good team around them to be
13:18able to encourage them in terms of what to do.
13:21A lot of this stuff really isn't hard, and it's not rocket science.
13:26It's a matter of just having a good plan and consistency around it.
13:30One of the things to understand is during the season, it's a lot.
13:35It is a lot. I mean, whether you're talking football, basketball, it is a lot of volume.
13:41It's a lot of working out. It's a lot of high-intensity stuff.
13:45And so being able to sustain a full season, it's not only a lot of work, but these guys have to rest.
13:52The offseason is really a time to be able to rest, recover, and get the body back to be able to sustain another entire several-month season.
14:01I think if guys are smart and they have good teams, physical therapists, strength and conditioning coaches around them, I don't know if it's that much different.
14:11I think some of the workouts might look a little bit different in terms of whether you're building strength.
14:17And a lot of that stuff is customized based on what the athlete needs.
14:22But I think just the volume of what they're doing in terms of recovery versus working out probably looks a little bit different in the season versus offseason.
14:32All right, so let's look at Christian McCaffrey, okay?
14:35He is having a healthy offseason. You hear players talk about this.
14:39There's a big difference this year for me just focusing on strength and conditioning and technique than last year when all offseason,
14:46all I could do was focus on recovery and rehabilitation.
14:50So like Brian Thomas was talking about that. Hey, I'm actually feeling healthy this year and I can focus on my rapport with Trevor Lawrence.
14:58Instead of last year, I felt like I was with the trainers constantly.
15:03And now this year, you're hearing Marvin Harrison say the same thing.
15:07Marvin Harrison Jr. saying the same thing. He's like, I'm constantly having to manage all of these injuries that are not fully healed from last year.
15:16And it's holding me back from the practice field.
15:19What do you make of that phenomenon that, hey, a healthy offseason versus talking about players that are currently we know rehabbing and they're trying to hit timetables?
15:29Speak to the difference between those two mindsets. Yeah, I mean, listen, if you've been blessed to not have to have a
15:36whole lot of injury to recover from, you can start to focus on the nuances of, like you said, building rapport with the team, techniques, plays, rhythm.
15:46You know, all those things in terms of being able to execute on the actual court versus spending most of your mental and physical energy trying to recover.
15:55I mean, that's just going to be a well-known thing.
15:59If somebody's nursing injuries, most of their time, energy, and effort is just going to be built on, hey, I've got to
16:06be healthy enough to get back on the court or get back on the field versus somebody who's feeling good.
16:13Well, they can focus a lot more of that time and energy on actually how to execute and build relationships that are
16:21going to foster and show results on the court or the field.
16:25So, like a Brian Thomas, for example, you wouldn't be surprised at all if Brian Thomas goes from having an inefficient season
16:32in 2025 and then suddenly he's back to being efficient Brian Thomas this year.
16:37That wouldn't surprise you in the least. Not at all.
16:41Listen, health is huge. If someone is healthy, you know, think about it this way.
16:46We only have so much mental capacity to focus on certain things.
16:50If most of our mental capacity is focused on trying to get healthy, there's only so much left in terms of being
16:58able to execute, build rapport, and all of these kind of intangible things that we're talking about is somebody being able to perform on the field.
17:07But if you're feeling good, if your joints feel good, you're not nursing anything.
17:11A lot of that mental and physical energy is not put toward that.
17:16You can really put that towards execution. So, for somebody who is healthy, coming into the season healthy for multiple months, you
17:23know, leading into the season, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are, you know, somebody had a breakout season.
17:31It'd be interesting to look at people who have these breakout seasons, what their injury report or what they looked like, you know, the 12 months prior.
17:40That's right. Right. Yeah, it's worth the deep study.
17:43We're going to do that study at Player Profiler.
17:46I want to put up on the screen here, Christian McCaffrey's injury history.
17:51He has a pretty stark track record of he plays four games.
17:55He plays one game. He plays three games or he plays 17 games.
17:59Right. And when he plays 17 games, he is the anchor of championship fantasy rosters.
18:04And when he doesn't, typically he's out for the majority of the season.
18:09And it's always a similar injury. Right. It's usually lower body, soft tissue.
18:13We're talking about Achilles, calf, you know, thigh, hamstring, hip.
18:17These are the things that have sort of set McCaffrey back over the years.
18:22What would be your recommendation if you were working with Christian McCaffrey?
18:26Yeah, that's a great question. Like I said, you know, my disclaimer is always that I'm not in that camp.
18:33Don't know specifically what's going on. But let's just take Achilles tendonitis, for example.
18:38I mean, I'm still scrolling down the list of everybody.
18:41Right. We're still going here. But let's just take Achilles tendonitis, for example, which is which I believe was at least reported
18:49to be a reason for why he missed a significant amount of time, if not last year, maybe the year before last.
18:56You know, the Achilles is a large, thick tendon in the back of the leg that connects the calf to the back of the heel.
19:05Um, it's used to be able to plant and, and, and cut.
19:09And it's one of these soft tissue injuries that is typically related to overuse.
19:14Okay. When we see anything that says tendonitis, uh, all that means is that the tendon is inflamed.
19:20And typically that's, that's a matter of overuse, either because there's too much volume of, of planting and cutting, or, uh, there's
19:27just too much load and, and, and weight or some combination of that.
19:32So understanding that and knowing that if he had that, my goal would be to really customize a lot of his training,
19:40um, when he's not, you know, playing games to really focus on making sure that we don't load that too much and
19:47really kind of save his planting repetitions for game time only.
19:51Right. Making sure that we recover really, really well afterwards, being able to have some variety in the workouts so that we're
19:58not just constantly putting load on the back of that Achilles.
20:02At the same time, we're trying to strengthen other muscles North of that.
20:07Right. So, uh, we're trying to make sure that the hamstrings are strong and flexible, try to make sure that the hips
20:14are strong so that whenever he's loading in essence, he's not putting all of his load on the lower part of that
20:22Achilles, but that he's displacing some of the load on some of the other areas of the body.
20:28Um, and, and this is really how we look at each of these guys, right?
20:33Like if, you know, some of these guys are kind of banged up.
20:38Some of these guys have some, some chronic things going on and it'd be crazy for someone who's got Achilles tendinitis to
20:45have the exact same workout, um, you know, program as someone who has a healthy Achilles.
20:51It makes no sense for them to just do a whole bunch of explosive running all the time.
20:57Um, we typically try to customize work around it, make sure they're, they recover in between games or at least in between
21:05practices, um, and build the all build everything else around it.
21:08Last year, Christian McCaffrey played 17 games and set a career high 311 rush attempts.
21:14Do you think that he was able to do that and will be, uh, have a higher rate of health, be less
21:21injury prone this year, just like he was last year, because he and his team have learned a lot of these lessons
21:29about recovery and how to, you know, limit the, the, the probability that he sustains one of these injuries during the season.
21:36I mean, you would certainly, you know, hope so.
21:39Um, you know, 17 games, putting up numbers like that, you know, you, you always have to be mindful of, um, again, just accumulative trauma over time.
21:49And if some, if, if any one particular person is just constantly carrying the load, constantly carrying the load, um, you know,
21:56if the, the ease, one of the easiest ways to have injury is to have muscles be fatigued.
22:02Right. And so if somebody is just constantly, you know, working, working, working, working, working, not paying attention to recovery, that's just something you got to think about.
22:12So that's a lot of load. Right. But I think there are ways to still, despite having a lot of responsibility as
22:20say a primary, you know, running back or receiver, uh, on a team.
22:24I still, I still think that there are ways to be able to, to offset some of these bangs and bruises and
22:32kind of overuse stuff by doing exactly what I talked about, having variety in the workout, customizing their specific training, uh, based on what their injuries are.
22:41And then, you know, depending on, on what happens to the athlete, they will then, you know, see us if they get
22:49to a point to where, you know, their, their injury is affecting their function.
22:53They're in the, they're in too much pain. This is when we get into, you know, the physicians being able to see
23:01them and doing things that are non-surgical to be able to help get them through the season.
23:07Um, cause that's really our goal. Our goal is to not to keep these athletes in the, Oh, our goal is to
23:14actually do unique things to be able to keep them on the field.
23:19So in combination with the strength and conditioning folks, the team physical therapists, um, and the physicians, we're all working together to
23:27create a customized plan for these guys who have a large load responsibility, like a Christian McCaffrey to try to keep them
23:34on the field and keep them as, as effective and performing at the best that they possibly can.
23:40So Christian McCaffrey is a San Francisco 49er. And are you aware that the 49ers hired a scientist to investigate an electrical
23:48substation that is located next to their practice field?
23:51Just in case there was a potential, uh, relationship between the location of the electric substation and the injuries that 49ers players were experiencing.
23:59Have you heard about this? Uh, I've not heard about this.
24:03No, I haven't. I have not heard about it.
24:06Um, it's up on the screen right now. This is a sports illustrated.
24:11Wow. No, I have not heard about it. Can you believe this electric substation gate?
24:16It, it seems like a stretch. However, you know, I think, I think teams are trying to do their best to get,
24:23you know, any kind of leg up as they can.
24:27And if they feel like apparently there's something that they think that this is potentially affecting performance.
24:33They hired a scientist. They hired a scientist. No.
24:36What are we talking about? I can't believe this.
24:39I thought I was mocking the whole idea. I even went to the electric substation next to Levi's stadium when I went
24:46to the Super Bowl and I did a report from there, but I mean, how'd the report go?
24:53It wasn't serious. Yes. I was joking. Yeah. We're, we're, we're stretching the, the sports medicine.
24:58Yeah. Performance, you know, kind of things here. Listen, I can't speak to an electrical substation next to the stadium as a,
25:06as a reason for why it might be affecting performance, but I'm interested in hearing what the outcome is.
25:12So your official position on this is that you don't think there's a relationship between the electricity and the injuries.
25:19I think that, uh, is it possible? Maybe. Is it likely?
25:23Maybe not as likely, but listen, I I'm, I'm open to hear, uh, what the outcomes are and, and, and what they actually glean from this research.
25:32As any good scientist would be, but be open to it.
25:36Open to ideas. We're open to no ideas. Um, uh, you know, um, I'll, I'll be here for, I'm here to read the, the, the report.
25:45That's right. That's right. After the investigation. I really want to read that report.
25:50I have a slight suspicion. It's not going to be available to, there will be no correlation.
25:56We'll see. We'll never know. We'll see. Yeah. We'll never know anything about this.
26:01The Reddit threads will live on. The speculation will live on and I'm, I'm here for it.
26:06So there's a number of players that are coming back from injuries.
26:11Some of them are just really good, feel good stories.
26:14And you know, there's, there's a handful that are really raising alarm bells, uh, with fans of those, those players and those teams.
26:22Uh, but the first one I want to talk about is Patrick Mahomes.
26:26He seems to be ahead of schedule. Uh, do you have a prediction?
26:31If you, if you had to predict Patrick Mahomes, will he be under center week one based on the reports that you're
26:38reading that he leaves from Kansas city? Well, let's, let's talk about his injury first, right?
26:44So Patrick Mahomes had a ACL tear, uh, at least what's been reported.
26:48Um, he had a reported ACL and LCL tear.
26:51And just to give listeners a little bit of context, when we talk about the knee, uh, the knee's got four main ligaments.
26:59Ligaments are there to connect bone to bone and to be able to provide stability for the knee.
27:06Um, probably the, one of the more traditional ways that someone has a ACL tear is what we call a non-contact injury.
27:13Meaning the player is running, they, they cut. And when they cut, uh, they quote unquote blow out their knee.
27:20And the ACL is one of those ligaments that lives on the inside of the knee that prevents the knee from what
27:28we call translating or, or having the tibia move in a, um, in a different angle relative to the femur.
27:35And so two of the four ligaments, at least based on what the reports say is what Patrick Mahomes tore.
27:41And so, um, he quickly had surgery in Dallas and his, his injury was December, late December, if I remember right.
27:49Um, yeah, so we've got, so we've got great.
27:52Yeah. So we have a, uh, anatomy picture pulled up.
27:55ACL sits right in the middle of the, of the knee and it prevents that tibia, the bottom bone from moving forward.
28:03It's a stability structure and the LCL is on the outside kind of little toe side of the knee.
28:09Um, and again, provide stability to that side. So he's taught, he tore two out of the four ligaments.
28:16Those are reconstructed. I'm sure. What's more popular nowadays.
28:19Is it your own or a cadaver? The gold standard, uh, if someone is their first time tearing the ACL, typically the
28:27gold standard is going to be, uh, reconstruction with, uh, with their own.
28:31Okay. Typically what we call a, uh, uh, you know, a bone tendon bone graph, which comes from the patella tendon from the front of the knee.
28:40Uh, that's the gold standard. So he had that, you know, typically these recoveries, you know, are anywhere from, you know, eight months to 12 months.
28:49And, you know, a lot of that depends on the athlete.
28:53Uh, there's certainly genetics involved. And I was going to mention that earlier when we talk about, you know, you know, being
29:01able to recover and, and, you know, guys being able to, to, to work out this clearly a genetic component to these,
29:08some of these people who can, who can recover in just an amazing way.
29:13Adrian Peterson. Yeah. Everybody thinks about Adrian Peterson, right?
29:16Like Adrian Peterson is just built different, right? Um, and a lot of people look at that back in six months.
29:23Yeah, I think six months. And a lot of people look at that and try to make that the rule when it's truly the exception.
29:32You know, uh, most of us, when we hear ACL tear, uh, physiologically, we know it takes time for that graph to
29:40be able to, um, to heal and to be able to, to, you know, uh, be what it needs to be in
29:47terms of strength, um, when someone cuts and, and it just takes time.
29:52So, uh, eight to 12 month recovery. Um, so if you do the math, you know, eight to 12 months from December,
29:59there's, there's a possibility he could be, uh, just based on what we know physiologically and the time it takes for ACL reconstruction to, to happen.
30:08But I think, you know, jury's still out. We just got to see what happens.
30:13I mean, he's out there in, in, in, in shorts and pad, you know, no pads, just shorts.
30:20And t-shirts and a giant, giant brace on his knee.
30:23Yeah. A cartoonishly large brace on his knee. Um, but you have to do that.
30:28You have to get out there, break up the scar tissue, get everything stretched out and strong.
30:34He's doing the right things, right? So, but I mean, if I'm cautious and if in dynasty leagues, for example, I go
30:42ahead and make sure I have Justin Fields on all my rosters just for the, at least the first say three weeks,
30:49it's nice now that they have the shorter pup window.
30:53That's really helpful now. I mean, that was that, I don't know if the players negotiated that, but that, that I would
31:00think that that would have been some of the union wanted, uh, so that the players don't have to make such an
31:08extreme decision with their doctors and team personnel about whether or not to go on injured reserve or not, like in terms
31:15of the recovery window, giving them a lot more flexibility.
31:19So I'll just say it. I don't think Patrick Mahomes is going to be under center week one.
31:25I'm not going to ask you to make a prediction on that.
31:29I don't think he will be. I'm looking at week four.
31:33I think that's fair. Well, again, so when I'll take you through our decision-making process, right?
31:38There are certain things that need to happen in order for a player to get back to the field of play.
31:46They, they, they need to be able to have range of motion.
31:50They need to be able to have strength. These are some of the objective things that we look at.
31:56Okay. Do they have range of motion? Do they have strength?
32:00Um, do they have pain beyond that? Then it's a matter of, can they, can they do the functional things that we're talking about?
32:08Can they run? Can they cut? And these are all kind of graduated over time, right?
32:14Because there's a difference between someone healing and someone being football ready.
32:18I'm going to say that again. No, no, this is a big point.
32:23This is, this is the point that I, that I'm making.
32:26Right. There's a difference between someone being healed from something and someone actually being football ready.
32:32And we call that, that, that gap between healing and football ready as the bridge.
32:37So there's going to be a time when Patrick Mahomes is going to have to bridge from healing to football ready.
32:44And these aren't just clear cut lines, right? They bleed into one another as we're healing.
32:50We're doing a, starting to do a little bit more functional stuff.
32:54Uh, the further out we get from healing, the more function and running and cutting.
32:59And, and, and a lot of what plays into that is confidence.
33:03You can imagine there's a significant, um, influence of, you know, just being apprehensive to get back out there.
33:10The last time he played full on football, he tore his knee.
33:14So, you know, so, so all these things have to be able to, to, to really align for someone to reliably be
33:21able to get under center or to be able to get back to, uh, whatever the position is.
33:28And for someone of, you know, Patrick Mahomes caliber, you certainly don't want to, to, to rush things at the beginning of the season.
33:36Uh, and really this is for any player. I mean, we're not just considering this season.
33:41You also got to consider their career. Right. And so we make these decisions between the doctors, the physical therapists, the players,
33:49like we, like, this is not just a one thing decision.
33:53This is a lot of education, information, looking at all of the data, seeing how they performing, you know, as they're recovering
34:00and then saying, okay, are we all in agreement?
34:03Are we all in alignment to get back? Yes.
34:07And then we get back. So there's a process.
34:10Um, and you know, again, we don't know what's happening, you know, in that locker room, in the training room, but that's
34:17typically what the order of how we make decisions for him to be able to get back.
34:23Justin Fields week one. I wouldn't be surprised. Study and play.
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35:20Depop. Where taste recognizes taste. Carolina Panthers. Tett McMillan was reportedly injured at the end of December.
35:25It was a foot injury. Wasn't supposed to be serious.
35:29But now we're hearing that there is foot soreness in June.
35:33What do you think of that? Here's the tough part about that is, is.
35:38We've, we've got nothing to really go off of.
35:41Foot soreness could be anything. Right. So, um, there's just, there's just nothing.
35:45There's no, there's not enough meat on the bone to be able to make a real understanding.
35:51Typically what I like to do is educate on what the diagnosis is.
35:55I don't even know what, what this is. Foot soreness could be so many different things.
36:01And I'm going to say some things, not saying it is these things, but I mean, it could be something from plantar
36:09fasciitis to a stress reaction to an inflamed joint.
36:12Who knows what the foot soreness means? So, um, obviously the organization is keeping things close to the vest.
36:18Um, and we're just going to have to see what happens.
36:22There's just, there's literally nothing there for us to be able to, to make any sort of educated, educated decision.
36:29Right now it's reported as foot soreness. I have no idea what that is.
36:34I mean, we just don't have enough information to be able to make a, make, uh, for me to even, you know,
36:41educate anyone on what the injury is or, you know, have, have any, the organization is keeping things close to the vest,
36:49completely understandable, but foot soreness could be, I mean, that could be anything.
36:53But, but he did have a foot injury in December and then it's six months later and it's sore.
37:00Okay. On a scale of one to 10, if you were working with him and consulting him on his strength and conditioning
37:07and his availability for the season, would you say one meaning almost no concern, 10 being incredibly concerned or somewhere in the middle?
37:15So some of this depends on, is this the same injury that's recurred from December?
37:21Or is this a new injury, same foot, but new injury?
37:24Um, we don't know. It's just, it's just foot soreness.
37:28But if it is the, if it is the same injury, it's not great.
37:33If it is the same injury, it's not great.
37:36Right. I don't know. You don't know. You know, it's fine.
37:39It's fine. You don't know. And the only reason I say that is because look from December to, you know, having several
37:47months of recovery, you know, if, if there's an injury to something and it gets an opportunity to heal, is it a, is it a tweak?
37:56Is it a full blown tear? But we're just saying it's sore.
38:00Um, what is disclosed to the media is intentional, right?
38:04It's intentional. And it's, and it's just a, a, a little bit of information.
38:08There's just not enough there. There's not enough meat on the bone to know, um, to have any sort of, any sort of timeline in my head.
38:18Like we were talking about Patrick Mahomes having an eight to 12, just knowing, just understanding what the injury is and what the surgery is.
38:26Hey, look, we know it's eight to 12 foot soreness.
38:30Your guess is as good as mine. Many of us, the wide receiver aficionados were sensitive to this because Roma Dunze just
38:37came out and said that his foot is never going to be the same because of the way his last foot injury
38:45healed and, and how the scar tissue forms. And he said it actually moved the bones permanently in my foot that, that
38:52would raise alarm bells with you if you heard that.
38:56So based on what the reports are, um, it said that Rome sustained a stress fracture in his foot.
39:02And there, there are a couple of things to consider here again, to educate everyone, a stress fracture in the foot is different than a, uh, traditional fracture.
39:12Like we think about, first of all, let me back up a second.
39:17When people hear fracture and they hear broken bone, they think there are two different things.
39:22So let me, let me, let me make something clear.
39:26Fracture and broken bone are the same thing. Okay.
39:29Now, uh, uh, a stress fracture is an overuse injury.
39:32It means that that bone has sustained, uh, a certain amount of load over time consistently to the point to where eventually
39:40it gets so stressed that eventually it cracks as opposed to, you know, somebody breaks a bone on a physics.
39:47It's just a physics equation. Hey, I got hit hard enough.
39:50There was no stress on it. It just cracked.
39:53So clearly this is an overuse situation that, uh, Rome is, is dealing with at the same time.
40:00It also depends on which bone and where along the bone, uh, the stress fracture is, uh, there is something called a
40:07Jones fracture, which is on the fifth, what we call the fifth metatarsal, which is the fifth long bone, uh, kind of
40:15closer toward the heel as opposed to closer toward the toe.
40:19That's named after Julio Jones. Uh, same last name, not named after Julio.
40:23Yes. He has had that injury too. Right. That's right.
40:27Um, just kind of interesting that Jones had a Jones fracture.
40:30That's what I'm saying. But so, so the Jones fracture is interesting because it, it does take a long time to heal.
40:38It can take a long time to heal. You deal with those stress fractures sometimes different than you would just a normal
40:45stress fracture in another metatarsal in one of the other bones of the foot.
40:50So some of this just kind of depends on where that stress fracture is.
40:55Talk about how it healed. If it healed it, you know, where it's not aligned, um, that may, that could potentially affect
41:03what we call his biomechanics, how he plants, how he cuts, um, you know, things like this is when we start considering,
41:10you know, orthotics, um, you know, to be able to help an athlete get past that and, you know, protect that injury from it not happening again.
41:20So I think there are probably still question marks, you know, just regarding, you know, is this really going to be able,
41:27is this really going to affect his performance? You want to see something freak you out?
41:33Let's just scroll through this knee sprain, knee sprain, hamstring strain.
41:36This is going from most recent to oldest injury.
41:40Hamstring again, shoulder, calf, toe, calf, ankle, knee, toe, hamstring, hip, ankle.
41:44There it is. It's week five, 2013 foot fracture, fifth metatarsal.
41:47Now he came back and he was an elite playmaker putting up like 1400 plus yards.
41:53So if Julio Jones can do it, I'm thinking Roma Dunze can do it.
41:58It sounds like because he's working so hard, he loves to stay after practice and work on one-on-one drills.
42:04And he's just pushing so hard. That's what happened.
42:07But to me, it's almost a signal that this guy has the right work ethic in a way.
42:14And similar to Christian McCaffrey, he will learn over time the best way to manage his load.
42:20And that's huge. What you just said is you can't go that hard for that long.
42:25Like you've got to learn. And the earlier that our elite athletes and even our weekend warriors, probably some of our listeners,
42:33some of the listeners here, when you can start realizing that recovery is part of your workout.
42:38It is actually going to help you perform better.
42:42And in essence, working out and recovering smarter and not harder.
42:45It's not about working out harder as you feel pain.
42:49It's really about being smarter over time and working to your strengths and having a good team who can customize your workouts
42:56and recovery around the things that you might have some chronic injury to.
43:01Have you heard about Alec Pierce's ankle injury? Because he had ankle surgery sometime in the spring, early in the spring.
43:08Right. And then they say, well, this is three to five months, actually, where it was like he's going to be back
43:16for camp and he's not back for camp. And it's like, oh, he's going to be back for preseason.
43:22It's like, no, he's not going to be back for preseason.
43:26And then will he be ready for week one?
43:29We don't know. No ankle surgery is typically from a broken bone.
43:33So it's not quite the same level of concern, not the same elongated timeline that you have when you have to sort
43:41of rebuild the ligaments in a knee or the tendons in a shoulder, for example.
43:46So do you have any sense when you would you hear the timeline that's been laid out for Alec Pierce?
43:53Yeah. Should he be gunning for week one or just accept, okay, it's going to he's going to have to go on the pop to start the season?
44:03Yeah. So let's talk about what's been disclosed so far.
44:06So he had some lingering ankle issues last year that required what they call, you know, he had surgery on his ankle.
44:14Like a cleanup? Is that a cleanup? Right, right.
44:17Exactly. And I'll come back to that here in a second.
44:20He had PRP, which is called platelet-rich plasma. So let's educate on that for a second.
44:26So platelet-rich plasma, it basically means we draw someone's blood.
44:29We spin it. It separates the plasma from the red blood cells.
44:34The plasma has a lot of what we call growth factors, things that are able to decrease inflammation and to be able
44:41to help promote healing depending on where you're injecting.
44:44So he had a PRP injection at some point based on what's been disclosed to the public.
44:50And it sounds like that got him a certain amount of improvement, but he eventually needed surgery and that he had this cleanup.
44:58Now, again, what is disclosed to the media is going to be very intentional.
45:03It's not going to be a whole lot. Cleanup can mean a whole lot of things.
45:08Now, typically, what we think about when we think of cleanup is inside of a joint, there may be debris just from wear and tear.
45:17And a joint can be cleaned up because sometimes that debris or even loose bodies.
45:22And I'm not saying this is the case for Alec Pierce, but oftentimes we're cleaning up a joint because there's debris, maybe even loose bodies in there.
45:31Not sure if that's the case for him. And when someone's getting surgery, it's not always necessarily a bone or bone fracture.
45:39Ankle could be ankle instability where they're really trying to tighten up the ligaments in the ankle.
45:45So not really exactly sure what's going on. The timeline is interesting and the fact that they're kind of pushing things back.
45:52But again, we're just going to have to see.
45:56But all we know is that it was a cleanup procedure.
45:59They were confident enough to give him a huge extension, $114 million.
46:03So I think they think that he's going to be back and he's going to be just fine.
46:10The question is, if he comes back well into training camp, misses most of preseason, is it just better to put him on the pop?
46:18And then to kind of launch him into football activities?
46:22It seems like a three-week pop stint would make the most sense.
46:26Yeah. So again, going back to how we make decisions as sports medicine physicians, it is difference from being healed or recovered from surgery versus football ready.
46:35So in his recovery process, I'm certain that what they're doing is assessing his pain, assessing his range of motion, assessing his
46:43strength, progressing him to see if he can do these football activities without pain and see how he recovers afterwards and his
46:50confidence to be able to do that. Those are going to be the general things that they're doing to get him back.
46:58You know, I always talk about risk-reward equation. So for every injury that we deal with in an athlete, there's a risk-reward
47:05equation, meaning there's a certain amount of risk to get you back on the field, and there's a certain amount of reward
47:13to get you back on the field. The biggest example I give is if it's the Super Bowl, big reward.
47:20We can all agree. So we're willing to take big risk.
47:24So if that's the case, we are patching guys up and doing whatever we got to do to be able to get guys on the field.
47:33Clearly, again, talking to the athlete, talking to the staff, making sure that we're all in understanding.
47:39But the greater the reward, the greater the risk.
47:42The same injury in postseason will be taken care of differently in preseason because in preseason, the reward is low.
47:49So you're typically going to be a little more conservative, a little more deliberate as you can get guys back when it
47:56comes to trying to get them back in the beginning of the season versus the end of the season, particularly if you're making a playoff.
48:05When would we ideally like him to return for his own long-term durability?
48:09Or when can we get him back? Those are two very different questions.
48:14Absolutely. And that's more of an... The first is more of the off-season disposition, and the second is more of the in-season disposition.
48:22And everyone knows this is the case. If you're a player, you have to advocate for yourself.
48:27And if you think you're not ready this week, you have to make sure the coaches know it and everyone understands it.
48:35Now, there are some conditions which I think are more black and white, like Chris Olave with the blood clots.
48:42I don't believe, because I've seen these reports and I've seen these treatments get laid out with players in the past, and
48:49then they were able to play at a high level moving forward.
48:54So I'm not particularly concerned about this, but it is interesting.
48:57It's something that he's dealing with. And I wanted to see if you had heard about the Chris Olave blood clot and
49:05how they're treating it with the blood thinners, and that the report just came out today that he's going to be going
49:13off blood thinners at the end of the month, and he should be good to go.
49:18This is a real unique situation, talking about blood clots.
49:22So to inform the listeners, in essence, what happened to Chris is he sustained what we call a pulmonary embolism, which means
49:29that he had a blood clot in his venous system that eventually, and typically, these blood clots start in the leg and
49:37will travel from the leg to the lungs. And this is a life-threatening situation.
49:42Let me make sure I make this clear. This is a life-threatening situation.
49:46And so he was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, which is very serious, and the treatment for that typically is going to
49:54be putting the athlete or the patient on blood thinners.
49:57I actually know about this because I've had a blood clot in my leg before, a couple of them.
50:04So I know this from a patient perspective, but also as a physician.
50:08And the reason why we put athletes on blood thinners, because in essence, it over time kind of dissolves the blood clot, okay?
50:16That blood clot has to dissolve because as long as that blood clot's in the lung, it is affecting the transport of
50:24oxygen for an athlete or for anyone who has a pulmonary embolism.
50:28It is affecting the ability for someone to be able to optimize and get oxygen.
50:33If you're an athlete in the NFL, oxygen is important.
50:36If you're just living as a human being, oxygen is important.
50:40But in terms of his performance, that's important. So that's got to dissolve.
50:45The big situation is this. You to play a collision sport on blood thinners is not going to happen.
50:51That's just not going to be clear. So they've got to make sure that the blood clot is dissolved and that he can come off of blood thinners.
51:01Now, again, I'm going to talk about generalities. Usually what happens is we try to find out why someone would develop a blood clot in the first place.
51:10Okay. A spontaneous blood clot. Usually blood clots happen because there's an injury to an extremity, an arm or leg.
51:17And then that will kind of start this cascade of starting a blood clot.
51:22But if somebody has what's called a spontaneous blood clot, no injury, no surgery to the area, and they just develop a
51:30blood clot, you try to work up, do they have what we call a hypercoagulable disorder, meaning some sort of genetic disorder
51:37that just predisposes them to develop blood clots. And then the doctors will take all of this information and then say, okay, what's the risk?
51:46Should someone be on blood thinners long term if it's their first one?
51:50And we can't really figure out why do we just monitor them?
51:54And it sounds like they've come to the conclusion that he can be off blood thinners and he can play.
52:01But that's the big thing. You cannot play a collision sport on blood thinners.
52:06No, no way. Because of the risk of bleeding.
52:09I mean, if he sustains a head injury, you know, I mean, you know, on blood thinners, it's not going to be good at all.
52:18That's a great point. Yeah, the head injury would be the biggest risk.
52:22Yeah. Absolutely. Malik Nabors. He had a second knee surgery.
52:26His return is unknown. For fantasy football, this is shaping up to be a lost season for him, particularly because once he
52:33can finally see the field, he then has to get his body into football shape and that's a weeks-long process as well.
52:41And then it's developing the confidence. It's all these things.
52:44And the season kind of slipped through your hands when you're in this situation.
52:49So if you were running a fantasy team, would you be drafting any Malik Nabors?
52:54Remind me, when was Malik's? Malik had an ACL.
52:58So again, to let everybody know, Malik Nabors had an ACL tear.
53:02We talked about this, Patrick Mahomes. It's a main stabilizer in the knee.
53:06But he also had a meniscus tear week four, 2025.
53:10And apparently, it seems like recently he had another cleanup.
53:13You know, there's that term again, another cleanup, I think a few weeks ago or several weeks ago.
53:19Again, question becomes, what was the cleanup for? You know, typically the way we think as sports medicine physicians, we really only
53:27try to go to surgery unless it's absolutely necessary.
53:30Okay. Okay. Surgery, which is not our, we try not to have that be our absolute first option unless it's something, you know, ACL tear, Achilles rupture, right?
53:40But typically, we're trying to look at this as, you know, how can we keep someone on the field?
53:46So if surgery is warranted, it's usually saying, okay, that was necessary, possibly more than some other, you know, non-surgical option.
53:53And the more surgeries, you know, the more we expose the knee to surgeries, just the more over time that there could
54:01be some chronic, you know, chronic injury to the knee or to any joint for that matter that receives multiple surgeries.
54:08So, you know, it's tough. I can't even play fantasy, quite honestly.
54:12I'm not even allowed to play fantasy. There's a lot of wide receivers.
54:17There's 31 other teams with most of them have multiple receivers, not all of them.
54:22Like the Falcons only have one, but most of them have multiple, plenty of choices out there.
54:28So to give you just an idea, if somebody's getting a clean out, you know, or, you know, going back to surgery,
54:35we're saying, okay, this, that was probably the best option.
54:39There's probably not some non-surgical options that, you know, this is likely the best option, even if it may not be what we ultimately want.
54:47But yeah, that's tough. Do you think Tyreek Hill is going to play again?
54:52Oh, man. Loaded question. So here's what's interesting. Multi-ligament.
54:55So again, we talk about the knee, four ligaments to the knee.
54:59And typically when we see these injuries where you're like turning away or the sports telecast, they say they give you a
55:07warning before they show the replay kind of thing, you know, where the like legs go in the other direction.
55:14These are usually multi-ligament knee injuries where, you know, we're talking about, you know, either three or all four of the ligaments in the knee.
55:23And that's a knee dislocation as opposed to like a patella dislocation where the kneecap just kind of shifts on you.
55:30These are very, very, very serious injuries. We worry about vascular compromise to the rest of the leg.
55:36Again, these are potential, these are literally potential limb threatening injuries.
55:40So these are very, very, very serious injuries. You want to make sure that there's no injury to the blood vessel that
55:47passes in the back of the knee, which is a large blood vessel called a popliteal artery and vein.
55:54There's a large nerve that runs back there. So a lot of risk.
55:58Having said that, there are players who have returned from multi-ligament knee injuries.
56:03Nick Chubb, which is interesting. Now, I see your face as I'm saying.
56:07He's had to work so hard to get back.
56:10Right. So when you ask, is it, you know, can he come back?
56:15It is possible because we've seen it before. But one of the things to consider is, you know, what is going to
56:22be the level of performance upon return? That's always in.
56:26And there's so many different factors that play into that.
56:29The recovery process. So, so much of this is a mental, it's a mental journey that the athlete has to be prepared for.
56:37Because you can find a great surgeon. You can find a great surgeon.
56:42You can do all the things right. You can put the pieces back together.
56:47Right. But you've got to regain strength. You've got to regain confidence.
56:51You've got to regain, you know, the ability to cut and move.
56:55And so is it possible? I would say yes.
56:58I think the real question is, if he does come back, at what level do we see Tyreek Hill, you know, if and when he comes back?
57:07He's 32.8 years old. I do not believe he's going to produce much this year at all for the reasons you outlined.
57:15But 2027, Tyreek Hill, you in? It depends. It depends on the team.
57:19It depends on the role. It depends on a lot.
57:23It depends on a lot of things. But from a sports medicine physician perspective, here's what we know.
57:29That kind of trauma to a knee is significant.
57:32And it's going to take a lot of work.
57:35It's going to take a lot of mental fortitude to get past it.
57:40And typically, I'm going to say typically, because there are definitely atypical cases.
57:44Typically, the performance upon returning is not quite what it was.
57:48That would be our expectation. The thing with Tyreek Hill is we're not going to know if it's age-related or injury-related.
57:55It'll likely be a little bit of both. But if it's a little bit of both and you have multiple forces, they're going to be suppressing his production.
58:05Interesting story from the Buffalo Bills about Dalton Kincaid's PCL.
58:08He opted to not get it repaired. When you heard that, what did you think?
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58:42Not surprised. So to understand it, so when we talk about these ligament sprains, particularly for PCL, we grade these sprains on
58:50a grading scale from one to three. Okay. A grade three PCL is going to be much more unstable than a grade one.
58:58Okay. So that's the grading scale. One is not as bad of a sprain.
59:03Three is bad. And that is determined by really the amount of fibers that are involved in the tear.
59:09So when we say sprain in our world, we're really saying there's some degree of tearing, whether it's grade one, two, or three.
59:17More bundles are being torn of the ligament, the higher we go in the grade.
59:22There are a lot of athletes who tear their PCL and have been able to sustain long careers.
59:29So to manage this non-surgically is not a surprise.
59:32With injections and regeneration. Yeah. And look, these guys are strong.
59:35I think one of the things that these guys are really strong and the PCL tends to be pretty forgiving if it's an isolated PCL injury.
59:44Okay. There are guys who I know have played more than a decade with a PCL injury.
59:50Okay. At a high level. They can run and cut and do those things.
59:55At a high level. At a high level. So not surprised.
59:59You're in on Tank Dell this year, right? Like, let's do this.
60:03Oh, man. Damn it. Okay, we're moving on. We're moving on.
60:07No, no, no. It's fine. Well, listen. I mean, let me answer.
60:11I'll answer. That's it. That's fine. Multi-ligament knee injury.
60:14Multi-ligament knee injury. Happened two seasons ago. The entire 2025 season was committed to multiple surgeries and recovery to get back for this season.
60:22So surgery and then rehab and then surgery again and then rehab it.
60:27You can't replace the ligaments all in one surgery.
60:30It's an independent surgery per ligament. It is staged surgery over time to be able to regain the stability of all the
60:37ligaments that were torn in the knee. Okay. He, in essence, destroyed his knee.
60:42Okay. Serious injury. So, again, we're talking about multi-ligament knee injuries coming back from that.
60:47That was the original question you talked about Tyreek Hill.
60:51I gave the Nick Chubb, you know, who's, at least last year, was on the same team with the Texans.
60:58But I'm curious to see, because, you know, Tank's young, so that helps.
61:02He's a freak. He's a freak. Fast. You can't believe how good he is, given, you know, his size and how quick he is.
61:10He's just so quick. He's like a ghost. That's right.
61:14That's right. Resilient young man. So, again, we know it's significant trauma to the knee.
61:19I'm thrilled that he's coming back, because you just love the story.
61:23Good kid, bad injury, you know, out an entire season, more than one season, comes back.
61:29I'm fired up. Great story. I'm rooting for him.
61:32But I'm curious to see how he performs when he comes back.
61:36It's a big thing to come over mentally. The physical part, we can put, you can put, you know, the pieces back together.
61:44But, you know, are they going to be able to sustain a full season?
61:49Are they going to be able to perform at the level that they were prior to?
61:54Question mark. Question mark. That's right. All right. So another feel good story coming from a guy with Texas roots, Jonathan Brooks.
62:02Oh, right. So Jonathan Brooks, he is feeling pain free.
62:05He's ready to be cleared for mandatory camp. He's in a great place mentally.
62:10Now, this is different. Instead of a multi-ligament tear that's sort of career threatening, life threatening, limb threatening, as you said.
62:17That's right. This was the case of he tore the ACL in the same knee multiple times.
62:23And so the second recovery has taken longer than the first recovery.
62:27And then the question is, can he be back to what we saw at Texas?
62:32Yeah, well, you know, I remember watching him at Texas.
62:36I'm a Texas guy. So I remember his last season there.
62:40He was an absolute monster. Unfortunately, tore his ACL in a TCU game, which in our world, let me just tell you,
62:47as a sports medicine physician, you get the right surgeon, ACL reconstruction, being able to give back, very likely, very likely.
62:55The technology behind ACL reconstruction and recovery is way better than it was years ago.
63:00So in what used to be a career ending injury is now, OK, look, you'll be out for a season and we'll get you back.
63:08Right. A little bit of a different story when it's a revision ACL.
63:13Right. So already tore his ACL, came back, I think, for a few games with Carolina Panthers and then tore it again.
63:20And then now is apparently, like you said, feeling good, doing well.
63:24You know, I think based on here's the challenge.
63:28Here's the check. He's got the thumbs up. Let's go.
63:31Right. Let's go, Jonathan Brooks. I think. Yeah. Yeah.
63:34Here's the challenge is he hasn't had like a full season of being able to go injury free from that ACL.
63:41I would love to see him have a full season of being able to run and endure a season post ACL injury.
63:49I think that would make everybody feel good. But with a revision ACL, it's going to have a little more of a
63:57question mark, which has been my term. Is there a different technique that they do for the second ACL tear?
64:03So let's say they were able to graft from the patellar in the initial surgery, the gold standard.
64:10Do they have to use a different technique for the second one?
64:14Yeah, absolutely. Well, you can't graft from the patella tendon from that knee anymore.
64:19Right. So you got to get a different graft.
64:22So you think they went for a different graft than going cadaver?
64:26So again, I'll say this. The gold standard is patella tendon, bone tendon, bone.
64:31That is the gold standard. So options, let's talk about options that we have with grafts.
64:36Okay. Gold standard is patella tendon. So if the patella tendon on the side that tore the ACL that requires a surgery
64:44is not available, one of the things that can be considered is the patella tendon on the other knee as a graft.
64:51Other graft locations include the hamstring tendon on the same patient.
64:55Another graft includes being able to get the quadricep tendon from the same patient or a cadaver graft.
65:01For our athletes, again, the way I feel, the way my knee surgeon and partner, who's also Denver Broncos team, doctor, Dr.
65:09Mayor, the gold standard is bone, patella, bone, BDB graft.
65:12So that's why if you tear it a third time or it tears the other knee, we're going to be out of patellar grafts.
65:21And then we're going to have to go to hamstring.
65:24The options get worse and worse as you go down.
65:27But so far, just the two means that he has two grafts possible from the two patellars.
65:33But the surgery is different. The surgery is more involved as well.
65:37On a revision, there's already been surgery there. Again, you're going in for a second time.
65:43So a revision is not approached the same way that kind of a first-time ACL is.
65:48Got it. Well, I got to tell you, I have a lot of Jonathan Brooks in these dynasty leagues where you have these guys for their whole careers.
65:58I'm a believer. Look, I'm rooting for the kid.
66:01Like I told you, I'm a fan of his only because being from Texas, I remember seeing him run.
66:08It's kind of heartbreaking to see him tear his ACL again.
66:12But it is possible. It's in the range of outcomes that this guy's a monster.
66:17It's possible. That's it. It's possible. That's what I want to hear.
66:21That's it. That's it. It's possible. It's possible. Dr.
66:24Ballard, thank you so much. Anything you want to leave the audience with in closing?
66:29No, this was fun. Hopefully it was valuable to them.
66:33At least kind of educate them on what's going on, how we approach taking care of athletes, how we approach really getting athletes back to the field.
66:42It is truly a team. Sports medicine is a team sport.
66:46It really is. I count on my physical therapists.
66:49I count on the strength and conditioning guys. I count on the guys who are with them day to day.
66:56I mean, we treat them in the clinic, but there's just several people that are involved in the team.
67:02And we all make these decisions together with the athletes.
67:06So when you see someone on the sideline or there's questions on whether it's time to get back or not, it is truly a team decision.
67:15Can't do it without them. And hopefully they got a little bit of insight in terms of how we manage these athletes.
67:22Can you believe this? Electric substation gate? They hired a scientist!
67:26Listen, I can't speak to an electrical substation next to the stadium.
67:30Your guess is as good as mine. Let's go, Jonathan Brooks.
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