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Florham Park – I knew when he said it, it was going create headlines, but I don’t think it’s as bad as it sounds.
When Mo Wilkerson made the following statement today about his ankle recover, I think the Jets PR people almost had a nervous breakdown.
“We just didn’t have a game plan as far as myself and the training staff,” Wilkerson said Thursday. “We didn’t have a game plan going into the season. We didn’t get one until maybe halfway through the season. I’m happy that we did find a plan. It’s working, and we’re going to continue to do that throughout the offseason.”
It made it sound like the Jets’ trainers screwed up.
I don’t think that is what he meant.
Wilkerson had his ankle surgery done by noted Orthopedic Surgeon Robert Anderson in Charlotte, NC. Most players dealing with leg/ankle injuries go to this guy. He’s considered the best in the business.
But one problem with not using the team doctors for the surgery, is it can lead to this kind of miscommunication.
In the summer, Anderson gave Wilkerson a clean bill of health and said he was good to go.
The Jets eased Wilkerson into things over the course of training camp, and then let him loose once the season started.
Once again, keep in mind, Anderson said the leg had healed.
So Wilkerson played when the season started, a good nine months after the injury. It was considered a six-month rehab.
But Wilkerson didn’t look right over the first half of the season, and now he says the plan wasn’t great early in the season.
Well, he was no longer under the care of the doctor who did the surgery, who said the leg was healed.
If he had been under the guidance of Anderson in Florham Park, maybe things are handled a little differently over the first couple of months, with several follow-up appointments in August and September. But Anderson was out of the picture. The guy has thousands of patients. He’s like Dr. James Andrews. Athletes are lining up to see these guys.
It’s like that old game of telephone.
I don’t think the Jets messed anything up here. I just thing there were some communication issues.
But the bottom line is this – he didn’t suffer any setbacks and now he feels back to his old self. He had had re-broken the ankle, we would be having a totally different conversation.
And Anderson had told Mo he wouldn’t be back to his old self until a year after the injury, and that is where we are at right now.
Now Anderson didn’t say he couldn’t play from the beginning of the season, he just said he probably wouldn’t be his old dominating self until late in the season.
This is kind of what we’ve always heard about ACL injuries. You come back after six months, but you aren’t truly your old self until further down the road.
I think this story is going to be blown up, as often happens around here, but it’s not that big of a deal.
Did anyone expect him to dominate early this season after no off-season and very limited summer work coming off a broken leg? That was probably very unrealistic.
December 29, 2016
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