Tom Brady - Torn ACL
Tom Brady owners will hear it. “That’s what happens when you take a QB in the first round.” The truth is that we will not know if there may have been an exception to the rule this year with Tom Brady. Injuries can happen to any 1st round pick. There is no way of knowing that someone with such a minimal injury history would be benched by injury in the first week of the season.
In the first week of the season, Brady’s foot was caught between the ground and a defender with his body was going a different direction while getting tackled. It’s the classic mechanism of injury for a torn ligament in the knee. Usually if the knee is hit from the side, the Medial (MCL) or Lateral (LCL) collateral ligament is involved and the player would be out 4 – 8 weeks depending on the damage. However, when the knee is hit dead on from the front usually it involves the Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the player will be missed for the rest of the season.
Just from looking at the game film and the picture above, my initial reaction that the in all likelihood if there was ligament damage it would come from the MCL. However, in times when a player is hit and the body is twisted while the knee is planted the ACL is usually also involved.
It may only be official with an MRI taken later. However, when reports out of New England come out early as a torn ACL, chances are is that there is a complete tear. Why? When Athletic Trainers test for stability of the knee ligaments, a certain test called the Lachman’s test will clearly show if the ACL is intact. There can be a false negative, meaning that swelling in the knee or muscle guarding from the player can make it seem like there is stability there when in fact the ACL is torn. However, there is usually no false positives. This would mean that there is a chance the ACL is not torn if there is no stability for the Lachman’s test. So, early reports of a torn ACL is not good news for Tom Brady.
What do Brady owners do now? Well, most owners probably had to grab him in the 1st round, so getting Matt Castle on your roster is probably a must. There will probably need to be luck involved in making the playoffs unless a couple of sleepers pan out from the later rounds, or owners have solid wavier wire pickups throughout the season. Randy Moss, another 1st round pick, may also be affected by Brady’s injury. However, Moss didn’t seem to miss too much with Castle in the game, catching a Touchdown pass from Castle.
Edit: There has been some concern on why Brady will not have the surgery until after his MCL heals…
It’s not so much waiting on the MCL, but waiting for it to heal enough to gain full ROM and gaining strength in the leg before the surgery. If he doesn’t have full extension of the knee before surgery, the swelling and scar tissue will only make rehab much harder and longer to gain the extension back after surgery.
During this time he is hitting the non-weight bearing strengthening hard to get his leg muscles as strong as possible before surgery. This may sound weird but it allows the muscles to realize muscle contraction and strength production before it goes through another trauma with surgery.
In other words better rehab will come from injury - swelling - controled Rand of Motion, decrease swelling, neruomuscular strengthening - surgery - rehab, then injury - swelling - surgery - rehab. Neuromuscular control strengthening sort lets the muscles not get stiff protecting the joint, and working out after a tauma is actually good.
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