NFL Career-Ending Injuries
For their study, researchers analyzed the injuries and rehabilitation of 559 NFL players who underwent surgery for an orthopedic injury between 2003 and 2013. Players were then tracked for two years after their injury to see which injuries ended up being career-threatening. Here’s what they found:
- Overall, 79 percent of players in the study returned to the field following their operation.
- The return-to-field rate was greater than 90 percent for certain non-ligament/non-tendon injuries, like broken arms, broken legs and sports hernias.
- Return-to-field rates were the worse for injuries to the ACL, Achilles and patella. Only half of those treated for “patellar” injuries to kneecap tendons returned to play, while 73 percent of players with Achilles injuries and 82 percent with ACL injuries returned to the field.
- Individuals with kneecap tendon injuries and ACL tears were the most likely to see a decline in on-field performance.
“These injuries have the greatest impact on NFL careers because of their relative role to the stability of important joints such as the knee and ankle,” said study co-author Dr. Wellington Hsu, director of research at the department of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The surgery is rather straight forward for a skilled orthopedic surgeon, but it can be difficult for a player to return to their “full, pre-injury capacity.”
The study is interesting, and while it shines an interesting light on devastating injuries to ligaments and tendons, it doesn’t tell the full story. It would be interesting to see these results incorporated with other player data, particularly age and length of time in the league. There’s a possibility that some players called it quits because they were financially stable and it wasn’t worth risking further injury by coming back, or maybe they were already on the tail end of their career, and the injury was simply the final nail in the coffin. This study gives us some telling information, but we can’t apply this at face level to every player in the league.