The RG3 Controversy

The report on the initial MRI given out in the media said that there were partial tears of the Medial Collateral ligament and a questionable partial tear of the ACL ligament, with an uncertainty as to whether the findings as per the ACL were " old" from an original tear going back to 2009 on the same knee which had been surgically repaired then when RG3 played football in college at Baylor.

Yet the MRI performed a month ago on his initial knee injury did not refer to any problems with the ACL, so any subsequent findings regarding the ACL had to have been from a subsequent injury on top of his initial knee injury of one month ago.

First question is what is a partial tear? It seemed like this press release was playing down the injury and the miss care of this athlete in leaving him in the games with a significant knee injury last month and in green lighting his playing in these games in the first place with a wobbly knee , the same knee that had already been surgically repaired previously.

The subsequent press release on extent of the surgery after the playoff game, which was a day later from the MRI, indicates that a full ACL reconstruction was done and there was no indication that the medial collateral ligament tear was just partial, although partial might be 70, 80 or 90 percent for all we know. Yet the word " partial" seems to have underplayed the extent of the damage to the medial collateral ligament and the word " partial" seems to have way underplayed the extent of what the subsequent injury actually was to the ACL and the post operative reports to the press do not refer to the injuries to either ligament as being " partial".

And, the fact that the surgical intervention was so prompt is also an indication of that the injury was quite severe.

It seems like the team and the doctor were trying again to play down their mistakes in letting this player stay on the field and get on the field in the first place, leaving him openly vulnerable to what happened, which was at best a career threatening and possibly career ending injury to a knee that had already been surgically repaired and needed to be monitored with extra care and diligence.

The type of surgery done on the ACL ligament is indicative of a fully torn ACL ligament or something quite close to a full ACL tear, so what was actually done contradicts to a degree what was said about the MRI film, which said maybe there was a " partial tear", of the ACL and maybe it was something showing up from the old injury from years ago.

Then, the surgeon, makes a statement that the player should be ready for the 2013 season, something that is highly unlikely as this time frame would be much less than the year away time frame that is usual for this type of injury, and this year away time frame is best case scenario, so in fact at best RG3 will miss next season and the doctor should not be saying otherwise.

The idea that he will ever play again in the NFL is being overly optimistic as well.

The failure rate for a first ACL reconstruction is about 5 percent, for a second ACL reconstruction, the failure rate is given at 25 percent.

With the problems of a second ACL along with the repair to the MCL having an uncertain arc, it is realistically closing in on 50-50 that the football career of RG3 is in fact over and the real hope is that he will be generally okay for more moderate athletic pursuits that are non professional.

We know also learn that the original knee strain of a month ago, not of the ACL, left him more vulnerable to overall knee instability on side to side movements and more at risk for what subsequently did happen, an apparent full ACL tear that warranted full reconstructive surgery a couple of days after the game.

It is clear, and not just a matter of hindsight, that he should have been shut down for the season at the point of the initial injury a month ago, and given a chance to recover from his significant knee sprain and not given a brace to wear for his wobbly knee for the next set of games, putting his career at risk.

The particular set of movements for a football quarterback who also doubles as a running back would not give the initial knee injury a chance to heal properly.

It seems like like a lot of double talk from the football organization and their doctor, James Andrews, in the limelight of intense press coverage.

This is not to say that James Andrews is not a great doctor and a super adept surgeon, but he is not being forthright with the media and general public and the mistakes made with this player and his health management and it seems he has wilted a bit under the bright lights of intense media scrutiny on this athlete and the doctor himself seems to have been pressured into making the wrong call is quoted as to having been nervous about RG3 being out there in the first place.

If this doctor can't handle staying objective to his profession under the intense pressure of winning and losing high stakes games, someone else should be in the spot he put himself in and he should stick to just diagnoses off the field and surgery after the fact.

Only a doctor with both the expertise and also a degree of thick skin who clamps down and goes by his initial call and does not let any subjective outside forces get in the way of objective analysis, should put himself as the " sideline" doctor for which I'm sure he is getting paid extra sums of money.

So a question is, what are the forces out there, the forces of society, the forces of the media and the viewing public, the forces of a win at all cost mentalities that fosters a decision of a top flight doctor going against his seeming better judgment and leaving this super player out there much more at risk for what did in fact happen?

Maybe the pressure is coming from the coach, GM, or owner of the organization that wants to make headway and win a playoff game, yet is paying the doctor for a medical view which should be strictly objective.

Or is it from the moment, from the 100 thousand fans that want their player on the field, is it from the collective voices that make sports into some iconic symbol of a rugged and hearty society that pushes through all obstacles?

Or is it from a huge betting public, that demands certain things stay still for the odds to remain intact?

After all the old prize fighter had to stay in the ring until he won or his bell was fully rung, as half if not all the town had bets riding on the outcome.

Even if he doesn’t come back, RG3 showed just how good he is or was, for that one shining moment in his performances this season and maybe he is in fact better off for the long run health wise with the ending of his football career earlier rather than later.

There was some real fumbling of the ball in how he was managed since his initial knee injury of one month ago, where he got away with just a sprain, a sprain however that was significant and seemingly underplayed in possibly leading to the current scenario, where he will probably not play next season and his career in jeopardy.

It was obvious to almost all viewers, even to non experts on knee issues that he continued to play with a serious knee injury in this week’s past playoff game and he was also favoring the knee in the previous two games and whether it was the fault of the coach, the player, or the doctor on the sidelines, there is clearly fault here and blame here and this devastating injury could have been avoided.

Yet, the actions of the team, the coach and RG3 himself, in these scenes, were still being defended post game, where the poor judgment of all concerned was quite noticeable and look at the awful results that unfolded.

What was being spewed forth on this is an insult to onlookers in that, it poses those closest to the events as the experts when if they are experts, they certainly didn't act like experts and the public can in fact figure that outran yet spin was and still is being given out seemingly to placate the public and to deflect real blame.

This is just another case, in the negative for sports aficionados, to where, you might ask, why I am following these guys?

The coach of the team apparently did the "due diligence" of asking the player how he was, and his simple response of okay was deemed enough to keep him in the game.

Does a plane take off if there is a question mark on the engine, and the pilot just says it sounds okay?

Knute Rockne like courage was lauded, in playing hurt and being a man. In the meantime, the franchise had invested huge sums of money and two extra first round draft picks to go from the 6th overall pick in the recent NFL draft to the second overall pick to draft RG3 as a prodigy and franchise quarterback, an idea that means he would be around hopefully for a number of years, not just this one year, which is more likely what is going to be the case now.

In light of this terrible outcome, there is fan feedback of anger towards RG3 himself, for not being more self protective and for saying he was okay to stay in these games when clearly he was not.

Apparently RG3 has gathered all the voices out there, all the voices he had heard all along about being tough in sports, and this played into his momentary say that he should be in the game, where in fact he could have stopped this from happening himself, irregardless of the poor judgment of the team medical staff and the coaching staff.

His fans feel robbed potentially of his skyrocketing career and are putting blame all over the place including on RG3 himself.

In the meantime, a little ways back, Jay Cutler was painted by some in the media as a wimp in opting out of a playoff game due to a knee injury in the category of a sprain, where only he himself knows what it felt like in that moment, and he was being self protective of his knee.

He might have preserved his career in fact by doing this and maybe it was more so media analyst who called him out rather than fans, who would rather it seems see the player have longevity.

Point being, that what is said by say TV analysts, doesn't necessarily represent all voices out there, voices that are now getting heard on sports through the new found vehicle of the social media.

TV analysts said he should have started the game, when in fact he should not have even played this game at all. Yet they come across as completely dogmatic in their expertise and this is what the players themselves are subjecting themselves to, on air TV analyst posing as doctors and as the persons that know best, when even the doctor in this case didn't know best.

Pundits were saying, as per his initial knee injury, that he should have been checked on the sidelines, and there is a "he said, she said", like dispute as to what happened on the sidelines with the initial knee injury and whether doctor Andrews who in fact was on the sidelines then, even looked at the knee initially.

Where one might also ask, how can even the most expert doctor on the sidelines, make a definitive diagnosis as to the possible dangerous nature of a knee injury with a brief sideline examination without the films, in this case MRI films?

And the player concerned needs to be accurate in describing what he is feeling as he moves the ankle or knee and checks it out.

And football does have the often unseen nemesis of the concussion, but this injury situation was in clear view.

In cross referencing to other sports, at times there is extra care to make sure the baseball player; the basketball player is okay for the long term in the way athletes are monitored in these sports, where they seem less like the throw away commodities that football players are in terms of their health management.

We see this recently with baseball pitchers, who even with some slight discomfort in the shoulder, elbow et, consult on the mound with the manager and trainer with an eye towards managing the health of the situation for the long run and for longevity as is among other things a long season, and even the playoffs run through a number of games, not just one winner take all type game as is the case in the NFL where there is certainly more pressure on the moment.

In basketball, also involving a more so long and drawn out season, Bill Walton had an foot injury years ago that he kept playing on because the staff had given him a pain killer injection on the initial occurrence and the subsequent damage done in playing on this foot cost him almost two years and shortened his career, although he did eventually come back.

Experiences like this have led to more caution in the management of injured basketball players, who you need but not for really for a given game as much.

But football seems to operate on very short notice, without pauses and reflection even in the short run as to what is common sense.

This maybe is part of what makes football so appealing and exciting, the rush of the moment is seen more so in this sport than in other major sports, but it lends to the greater possibility of leaving players with iffy injuries in the game.

Is all this this partly to do inflated egos, where all the intangibles are going to negate the physical laws that are the subject of injuries?

If I am courageous or not, the ligaments and bones are not listening to my inner cry of courage. It is a factual situation as to what is happening that needs to be looked at by all concerned objectively.

And this shows a bit in the general idea that whoever is the quarterback these days, is always the quarterback for the whole game, so he can keep his rhythm. but this is another thing that goes against checking on the injury situation for the quarterback as he seems never to get off the field during the game.

And this is with the advantage in the rules of the sport where a substitute can be brought in and out of the game, all game long.

A baseball pitcher, once he exits the game, can’t reenter, so take him off the mound ends the day.

It is always disappointing to hear anybody, especially someone so adept and so dedicated to the sport to have an injury like this. In the case of RG3, he has been one of the most mesmerizing athletes to debut professionally in years in any sport and his debut was one of the top 5 overall sports stories of this past year.

But what happened here was quite disquieting to fans who have latched on to their new century star.

If that have a star, they don't want a disappearing star.

Fans in truth do not want to see the Willis Reed in the New York Knick championship finale type performances of players entering key games hurt, jeopardizing everything they built towards, and they don’t want to see a melt down in common sense towards sporting life preservation by the coach, the doctor on the sidelines, and the player who says they are okay, and then have all the parties turn around and spout out ideas of you have to hang in there at all cost including the cost of the career itself for this one game or set of games.

Ultimately, this is an insult to the fans who want to be there and stay there, and to their overall acumen as well as sports acumen in giving them double speak as to what has has gone wrong, and stories like this and statements around stories like this only serve to distance the players, the teams and sport itself from who is ultimately paying the bills, the fans themselves.

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