Sobering Stats re: Cooper's Injury

[Patler]

A few decades ago, Cooper's injury was considered career ending. Not so now, and as Rodgers explained a few years ago, surgical techniques are constantly improving. That said, the stats are a bit sobering, especially for Cooper. From an AI summary:

A multi‑sport study found 72.4% returned to play again following torn Achilles tendon repairs.
A study of 676 NFL players found only 66.2% returned to play again.
Only 27.1% were perceived to have regained previous performance levels.
Players returning from torn Achilles repairs had significantly shorter overall careers, on average.
Among NFL players, running backs and linebackers showed worse results than players at other positions.

I was not able to determine how far back in time the NFL study went, or if it included many players injured before surgical repair techniques began to achieve successful results.

[texaspackerbacker]

That didn't exactly sound right, so I Googled "athletes with torn achilles". Mostly the articles talked about basketball players - a sport that arguably requires more speed and mobility than football, but there were some football players too and some pretty far back time-wise - well before the modern surgical techniques spoken of. For example, Dominique Wilkins returned from his achilles tear and scored 29.9 points the next season. Kobe Bryant also did pretty well. The most direct comparison to Cooper might be Terrell Suggs, also mostly a linebacker. He returned 5 1/2 months after his injury and played effectively. He had a 17 year NFL career, 7 of them after his achilles injury.

I also read that as much as a fourth of players with achilles have their careers ended, although the article didn't give any examples. The same article said return from a complete achilles tear either with or without surgery is usually 6-12 months, 4-9 months if it is a partial tear.

Do we know if Cooper had a complete tear or just partial? I would think being as young as he is would bode well for a successful comeback for Cooper next year and beyond.

[pbmax]

That didn't exactly sound right, so I Googled "athletes with torn achilles". Mostly the articles talked about basketball players - a sport that arguably requires more speed and mobility than football, but there were some football players too and some pretty far back time-wise - well before the modern surgical techniques spoken of. For example, Dominique Wilkins returned from his achilles tear and scored 29.9 points the next season. Kobe Bryant also did pretty well. The most direct comparison to Cooper might be Terrell Suggs, also mostly a linebacker. He returned 5 1/2 months after his injury and played effectively. He had a 17 year NFL career, 7 of them after his achilles injury.

I also read that as much as a fourth of players with achilles have their careers ended, although the article didn't give any examples. The same article said return from a complete achilles tear either with or without surgery is usually 6-12 months, 4-9 months if it is a partial tear.

Do we know if Cooper had a complete tear or just partial? I would think being as young as he is would bode well for a successful comeback for Cooper next year and beyond.

Suggs was an EDGE, he rarely dropped of the line of scrimmage. Pass rusher first, second and third. Occasional drop to coverage like Peppers in GB.

[texaspackerbacker]

Edge aka Outside Linebacker. Cooper was rushing the passer or so it seemed when he had his non-contact injury. Either way, it's about the same amount of athleticism required, not like O line for example with relatively immobile yokozumas.

[Patler]

That didn't exactly sound right, so I Googled "athletes with torn achilles". Mostly the articles talked about basketball players - a sport that arguably requires more speed and mobility than football, but there were some football players too and some pretty far back time-wise - well before the modern surgical techniques spoken of. For example, Dominique Wilkins returned from his achilles tear and scored 29.9 points the next season. Kobe Bryant also did pretty well. The most direct comparison to Cooper might be Terrell Suggs, also mostly a linebacker. He returned 5 1/2 months after his injury and played effectively. He had a 17 year NFL career, 7 of them after his achilles injury.

I also read that as much as a fourth of players with achilles have their careers ended, although the article didn't give any examples. The same article said return from a complete achilles tear either with or without surgery is usually 6-12 months, 4-9 months if it is a partial tear.

Do we know if Cooper had a complete tear or just partial? I would think being as young as he is would bode well for a successful comeback for Cooper next year and beyond.

None of that differs from what I wrote. In fact, in what I found, Wilkins, Suggs, Bryant and others were mentioned as examples of players who did have good results. That doesn't change the overall stats. Somewhat surprisingly, NBA players had generally better results than NFL players.