The 2021 NFL Week 9 Roundup | Snap Crackle POP
AC — Yell!
POP! You hear this noise, look down and know instantly that you’re in trouble. The sound is immediately met with collapse to the ground as you clutch your knee in searing writhing pain. The only byproducts more abundant than the pain are the tears that WILL accompany it. Three letters that you know in your heart spell out a time-intensive, tortuous road to recovery: ACL. The dreaded ACL injury is perhaps the most terrifying affliction to rip through a football, basketball, soccer player or layperson’s patient medical chart. It’s also perhaps among the most well-publicized and at the same time least understood injures in Sports despite its household name recognition; a diagnosis seemingly dispensed like candy on any given Sunday. Whether termed a strained ACL or a torn/ruptured ACL, It’s a well-worn tale that carries with it significant emotional toll, a long, winding ratty road to recovery — and more often than not a triumphant return to the field of play.
Nearly 200,000 ACL injures are encountered every year in the United States alone. At the professional level, MLS boasts of just 1 ACL injury per year; the NBA, 4; the NFL hides behind 62 annually. In the world of statistics, 62 is termed an outlier. 62 also represents dozens upon dozens of athletes whose careers bristled to a complete panic stop as the scenery that was once a fantastic blur suddenly rendered in painstaking colorful detail a life held in tight suspension. It’s all out of necessity and respect for the wonder of the infrastructure that makes up the human body. The knee is one of if not THE most complex joint in our bodies and is a complex that fuels human mobilization; it’s also joint we all take for granted until something goes wrong. The knee is a conglomerated structure (where the thigh bone and shin bone meet) held together with tendons, ligaments and muscles. From you days in anatomy class, you’ll recall that tendons connect muscle to bone. And that ligaments connect bones to each other. The knee is fastened together with the help of 2 types of ligaments: Collateral ligaments, on the left and right side of the knee to control side to side movement, and Cruciate ligaments, front (anterior) and back (posterior/PCL) ligaments that oversee back and forth movement. So Collateral and Cruciate ligaments work in symphony enable and protect joint movement in 360 degrees. The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is the front-of-knee ligament that has a nasty habit of writing disturbing headlines and prematurely ending player Seasons.
Just the nature of contact sports spells ill for the peaceful utopian harmony our knees have rightly come to expect over the millennia. Traumatic impacts to the joint, hyperextension, pivoting or landing poorly each play their part in detrimentally disrupting the finely honed machinations of the knee. The Collateral and Cruciate ligaments stabilize the knee in day-to-day duty. They also — crucially — function as guardrails preventing over-pronation, back and forth or side to side. Nobody wants wobbly knees. Ligaments prevent permanent baby-Giraffe gait. But when subjected to inordinate impacts, ligaments can snap or tear. When this occurs, all bets are off and a world where you walk like a baby Giraffe aren’t that far off the mark. An ACL injury is the most common (of the quartet of knee ligaments) simply due to the workhorse nature of the ACL keeping the tibia in-line with the femur and at the same time managing twisting and pivoting. The ACL, while a study in endurance and versatility, does have its limits. When its limits are breached, it’s unmistakable. Symptoms include the telltale audible POPPING. Athletes also gruelingly report feeling the POPPING of the knee. This POPPING quickly gives way to intense pain coming from the back of the knee. The joint in short order becomes unrecognizable, a victim to severe swelling, as the body rushes its internal medics to the sight of the trauma. Even worse is the inability to place any weight on the disabled joint which buckles with instability, naked without its protective ligature. All you can do at this point is bite your lip, curse the toads and wait for help. Thank you, ACL! And PCL/MCL/LCL.
Your 10-month road to where you were just 30 seconds ago begins as medics rush to your aid as you lay beset with pain, your body engulfed with adrenaline, as you clutch your throbbing knee. A quick field-side examination has your Team physician waving over the Cart which then rushes you deep into the dark corridors of the stadium before delivering you to a 10-foot optic-white LED-illuminated doughnut shaped MRI machine in a brightly lit exam room. The MRI confirms for doctors what you are tearfully struggling to internally admit and digest: a torn ACL. An interesting thing with tendons and ligaments is that they cannot repair themselves like most other tissues in the human body. The chief reason for this stunting is that poor blood flow to these structures inhibits any type of self-restorative efforts. Instead, torn or ruptured ligaments are puttied with second-rate scar tissue; tissue that is neither elastic nor functional. And that’s why surgery is the preferred course of treatment and one that facilitates a complete return to health and Sports. So you and your doctor have opted for surgery. Now what? It’s actually not as horrible as your imagination might depict. It’s all done arthroscopically with tiny instruments and has become so routine as to be a procedure with little in the way of quote unquote complications. Your doctor will carefully remove your damaged ACL completely, extracting it from one of the three small incisions made. Next a replacement ACL (either a tendon from your body or a donor from a cadaver) is pinned to two small holes bored into your femur and tibia. The excavated bone plugs are lightly hammered back into place and a new ACL is born, similar in concept to how Christmas lights are strung from a roof’s eve. And then the OTHER discomfort begins. That of physical therapy. Physicians demand that you are on your feet within days to facilitate the healing process. You’ll be outfitted with a brace that limits your range of movement to allow your knee to adjust to its new normal. The brace is calibrated in degrees to expand to accommodate your rebounding knee’s range of motion over time as fortified by daily resistance training. It’s an arduous recipe but one that prescribes a full and complete return to rehabilitative health. And your former life of Sports. IN the meantime, you’ll have 8 months to think about what 3 letters mean to YOU. And how the $51,000 price tag all-in will be paid for.
So should you ever find yourself in the uncomfortable position of lying belly-up on a football field, soccer pitch, basketball court or even your living room floor, KNOW that you’re in good company. Noteworthy athletes who have powerfully rebounded from ACL injuries include Tom Brady (2008, ACL and MCL tears), Rob Gronkowski (2014, ACL and MCL tears), Teddy Bridgewater (2016, ACL tear and dislocated knee), Adrian Peterson (2011, ACL and MCL tears), Klay Thompson (2019, ACL tear) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (2020, ACL tear) among many others. While such athletes do have access to Titanium-level health care plans and top-flight medical teams, their anatomy is the same — generally speaking. The dreaded ACL tear, while fear-mongering, needn’t be so intimidating. It is hardly the career-ending, bed-ridden condition you perceive as your imagination runs wild. The miracle of modern medicine sees to it that it’s NOT. Similarly, don’t be so quick to write off any pro athlete whose name is painted in the headlines next to three letters: ACL. Sure it’s a time-consuming setback but it’s not a crippling one. Just keep in mind the acute pain that accompanies the initial tear and closely follows the months of physical rehabilitation. And the mental stamina needed to push through the meandering, uphill climb back to Day 1. And in a timely reminder in our Season of Open Enrollment, it’s handy to be blessed with a comprehensive medical plan to undergird your own fairytale ending. From three letters to ONE smile in eight months flat. In-network and on-the-mend! NEXT?!?!
Turning now to the Season’s halfway point, the line between have and have-not is become clearer by the day. Kinda. Case in point: Brownies at Bengals, a traditional intrastate AFC rivalry, that sees the two teams on differing trajectories despite their shared standing in the AFC North basement. So to say CLE had an interesting week would be a mega understatement as evidenced by a casual reverse thumb scroll of all the ESPN alerts on your iPhone. There have always been rumblings of star WR Odell Beckham Jr. discomfort with the Team for the past few years, as there always were with his prior Team, the Giants. OBJ started with the Browns on fire in 2019 but then the law of diminishing returns caught up to him when — drumroll please — an ACL tear prematurely ended his Season last year in Week 7. He returned this Season and found none of the glory of his early years and even fewer playmaking opportunities. A star stifled, he felt. His father famously got in on the act and posted a selectively edited clip of Baker Mayfield’s repeated transgressions against OBJ to social media at which point the Waiver wrote itself. OBJ was released yesterday (maybe to Seattle, we’ll see). Now with all the drama having booked an out-of-town theater, QB Baker Mayfield was free to recoil into the freewheeling, strategic and fun playmaker his teammates know and CLE fans have come to expect. Baker and RB Nick Chubb has a field day in Cincinnati as the stepped up OFF matched for a change the Team’s DEF, 41–16. Trevor Lawrence and his Bengals were left wishing for an OBJ return. Now that CLE can breathe, we’ll see how far they can fly. Down in KC, another ripped-from-the-headlines Team — the Packers — noisily tread into town carefully attempting to masquerade the traveling circus it had in tow. The disguise had little effect. Wherever you land on the issue, Aaron Rodgers was left to sing for his supper and much to his chagrin the autotuned song he was attempting to sell fell flatly on plugged ears wherever he looked. He might have been done well to contact a publicist/crisis manager for advice on how to rollout his “news”. In any event, Aaron gambled with house money and lost. A crucial LOSS interrupted the Team’s previous 8 game winning streak and with it precious seeding in the playoffs. His understudy and heir apparent, Jordan Love, debuted unevenly but performed admirably in spite of the circumstances. And in the end it wasn’t enough as the Team slid under the Chiefs, 7–13. AS for KC, Patrick Mahomes continues to underperform even though his Team’s terrible DEF showed some tempered signs of life. Interestingly, bookies have the odds of the former ACF champs even reaching the playoffs at 50%. Quite the comedown and proof that halos can break.
Down in Arlington, the visiting Broncos expected a battle royal in light of the triumphant return of a previously injured Dak Prescott. They didn’t get the battle instead escaping with a surprising royal flush, 30–16. Dak is still clearly in recovery mode and had troubles accelerating to his early Season prowess. Further, the Team’s typically bulletproof Defensive shield looked to be fabricated of cheese this week. Denver, conversely, bracing for the loss of pass rusher Von Miller to the Rams this week, found their worries unfounded. QB Teddy Bridgewater pushed the Cowboys to the ropes and rung them up. Suddenly the shine in DAL is less blingly. But one week does not a trend make. Until it does. Over in Jacksonville, the Bills of all teams, suffer the indignation of being the second Team to LOSE to the terrible JAGS. Josh Allen didn’t look like Josh Allen especially with his his TWO INTs. In what universe is Josh EVER pressured by a JAX DEF with all the menace of a bowl of soup? NFL Universe, Week 9 apparently. On the other side of the coin, Trevor Lawrence is lighting no fires for the JAX Offense even though they escape with the Win, 9–6. 9–6 LOL! And up at MetLife Stadium, the feeble Giants managed to upset the Raiders, 23–16. NYG QB Daniel Jones had a pretty good go of it and outplayed his counterpart from Sin City, Derek Carr. The Raiders for their part had a VERY eventful week for differing troubling reasons and it culminated in two abrupt player releases. It seems like all the bad juju encircling the Team has finally stained their uniforms. So much so that Derek Carr threw two uncharacteristic INTs, one of which was returned for a NYG TD. Despite the theatrics, the Raiders share top billing in the AFC West at 5–3. But how much more tragedy can befall a Team before the walls start moving in though? Good thing they are based in Vegas I suppose.
And lastly in our Round Robin, the injury-riddled CARDS harnessed the strength of their bench in defeating the rapidly deflating 49ers, 31–17. Colt McCoy was a terrifically suitable (for this game at least) stand-in for Kyler Murray who is nursing a sprained ankle. This game though is more a tale of woe for SF where Jimmy G contemplates his future, his health and his unsteadiness. 49ers fans contemplate next Fall. In Philly, the Chargers looked to be headed for their 2nd loss in two weeks, victims of the much-maligned mid-season slump. But no, QB Justin Herbert had other plans and floored the bus gas pedal to victory late in the game, 27–24. Jalen Hurts and his Eagles so confident in the first half never saw it coming and are left with their 3–6 record to recoil from. Pats at Panthers showcased the continued calamity in Carolina. Troubled QB Sam Darnold is proving to be all sorts of WRONG and runs in circles attempting to escape his own destiny. He threw for another 3 INTs, inline with his nasty habit of topping off his collection of dubious bests. In the meantime, the Pats are morphing into AFC contenders all of a sudden. But don’t tell that to the Bills who just got their clock cleaned. The lowly Falcons barely edged out the injury-plagued Saints, 27–25 while Lamar Jackson was at it again performing miracles barreling the Ravens out of a deep hole that bottomed out in the 2nd against the Vikings in a 34–31 OT victory. The Titans upset the Rams in a game that had LA looking like their previous 7–1 record suggested, 28–16. TEN jumped out to an early commanding lead and never looked back. A series of sloppopotomous mistakes, some of the most grievous committed by QB Matt Stafford, has the Team licking their chops. As well, the Texans are now up to their 8th loss in succession (1–8 on the Season) succumbing to MIA of all Teams while Steel City bulldozes its way to it’s 4th W in the last 4 weeks. Which gives fodder to the adage that it’s a fool’s errand to bet against the Black and Yellow!
