The Super Bowl is just days away, and soon either the Denver Broncos or Carolina Panthers will be named NFL Champions. This season has been particularly intriguing, but it hasn’t been without injuries. In fact, some medical experts recently decided to sit down and discuss five of the most common foot injuries that felled football players this season. Today, we take a look at what they had to say.
Football and Foot Injuries
Here’s a look at some of the injuries that kept some players off the field this season.
1. Torn Plantar Fascia – This injury made headlines when it was announced that Peyton Manning, who will soon be representing the Broncos in the Super Bowl, was playing through a torn plantar fascia in his foot. The injury involves the tearing of the tissue on the bottom of your foot that helps form your foot’s arch. You can play through the injury if you have a high pain tolerance, but it clearly was hindering Manning’s ability to plant his front foot and finish passes. Eventually, the team decided that the best course of action would be to sit Peyton down for a number of games to give the injury some time to heal, and it appears that it worked, as the Broncos are AFC Champions.
2. Lisfranc Injury – The Lisfranc ligament sits at the point in the midfoot where the metatarsals and the tarsal bones in your arch meet. A Lisfranc injury is very painful, and sometimes even requires surgery. Peyton’s brother Eli dealt with this injury in the past, and it can really make it hard to compete. Sometimes the injury resolves with rest, but other times surgery is necessary.
3. Turf Toe – This might sound like a minor injury, but this “little” injury can fell even the biggest of athletes. Turf toe is categorized as the hyper extension of the big toe, and it can make it extremely painful to push off. After all, when your accelerate, you push off using the front of your foot and your toes. As Dr. Thomas Gill, director of the Boston Sports Medicine and Research Institute and former medical director of the Patriots, puts it, “If you can’t [extend] your toe, you can’t push off. So you shorten your stride, you don’t get the push off, you don’t get the speed.” For receivers and running backs who rely on their speed, this injury can sideline them for weeks or months.
4. High Ankle Sprain – A high ankle sprain occurs when their is lateral force placed on a planted foot, causing it to rotate in an unnatural way. This stretches and tears the ligaments between the tibia and fibula, and it can even lead to a total fracture of the fibula. These injuries can occur to any player, but they are more common in running backs who are fighting for extra yards and in offensive lineman who get hit by a different player while standing and blocking the man in front of him. They typically knock a player out of action for 2-4 weeks.
5. Torn Achilles – This injury is a season ending injury for any player, no matter when it happens during the season. The Achilles is the strongest tendon in your body, so tearing the tendon is no laughing matter. It takes months of rehab to heal and then even more time for a player to regain strength and confidence in the ankle. This year Arian Foster suffered a devastating Achilles tear than could jeopardize his playing career.