The timeline for Brock Purdy’s return is still murky.
The 24-year-old is expected to begin throwing for the first time since tearing his ulnar collateral ligament in roughly a week.
Nick Wagoner of ESPN joined Papa and Lund on Thursday to discuss the specifics of the surgery and what Purdy’s recovery looks like
Wagoner pointed out that the internal brace surgery is still in its relative infancy, with only about 9-10 years of data. But that data shows a “very, very low” failure rate.
“And I think the biggest thing that people need to understand here is that what is being placed in the arms was to kind of pull that ligament back together to put things in place is basically made of collagen,” Wagoner said. “It’s a collagen tape, but it’s very strong and the way [Dr. Jeff Dugas] explained it to me is that it’s almost like Kevlar and it eventually dissolves. So when the ligament actually heals, that thing goes away and basically you’re just kind of back to normal as opposed to putting a graft in like you do with Tommy John surgery.”
In talking to quarterbacks Nick Mullens and Clayton Thorson who have had the same surgery, Wagoner says the, “… returns they’re getting have been kind of overwhelmingly positive.”
Purdy will begin to ramp up starting next week, Wagoner said. But he won’t immediately start throwing a football. It will a slow grind that’s already begun with range of motion drills, and will have a lighter ball starting next week.
Mullens and Thorson gave Wagoner and Stephania Bell positive results.
“They never really had any issues feeling like themselves,”Wagoner said. “The main thing is is just not pushing themselves too far too quick. But once it comes back, the kind of feedback that they’ve been getting, once they start feeling comfortable, is that they feel all the way there. They don’t they don’t feel like there is some sort of thing that’s going to hold them back once they reach a certain point. And then once they get there, they can start going.”
The full timeline, Wagoner said, could vary.
“The initial timeline that people put out there is six months on the recovery from injury,” Wagoner said. “But it could be five months, it could be seven months also. It just kind of depends on the athlete.”
So, Purdy could back by Week 1, or it could take longer. But the early results seem to suggest that his long-term prognosis, if he doesn’t rush it, is positive.
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