GREEN BAY – It appears the Green Bay Packers have avoided a worst case scenario with quarterback Jordan Love. “The words you don’t want to hear, as a professional athlete is, it’s your ACL,” said Packers Hall of Famer Mark Tauscher on WTMJ’s Wisconsin’s Morning News. Tauscher pointing to reports that the Packers second year starter injured his MCL on Friday night in the Packers loss to the Eagles.
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“If you look at it in slow (motion) what looks like a pop, that means that part of the ligament popped or tore.” That’s what Sports Medicine Specialist, Dr. Samuel Steiner saw. Dr. Steiner specializes in knees and shoulders at Orthopaedic Associates of Wisconsin. He tells WTMJ the medial collateral ligament (MCL) is, “… the largest and it is the most commonly injured ligament of the knee, but it’s the one we don’t talk about too much because we don’t do surgery on it that often.”
Whew.
When an athlete tears an ACL, anterior cruciate ligament, that’s usually a “out for the season” diagnosis. Recovery time from surgery is measured in months, not weeks. The MCL, however, is different. Dr. Steiner says if it is indeed a partial tear, “…we most often just go slow with. We brace it. We protect it, and it heals itself up. No residual deficits, no problems in the future. You’re not more likely to tear it again.”
Dr. Steiner believes Love could be medically cleared to play in three to four weeks. Tauscher predicts he’ll want back on the field sooner. “Jordon Love is going to be itching to play,” Tauscher said. “My guess is he’s going to be feeling a lot better by the middle of this week.”
The Packers training staff, however, according to Tauscher is typically conservative and perhaps even more so with the team’s franchise quarterback. Tauscher believes Love’s return will only come after he proves he can stay safe on the field. “Once he is cleared and you feel like he is able to defend himself,” Tauscher explained. “When he can move around and defend himself and not give himself more opportunities to get injured because of it, you have to hold him until you feel that way.”
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