How a Season Goes Bad...

What was supposed to be an uneventful final week against the Donkeys has turned into something that is quite significant and not at all completely devastating. We are missing the playoffs, we are colossally inconsistent as a football team, and now we are staring at an enormous problem at the quarterback position. I don’t think people understand what happened on Saturday.

It has been revealed that Drew Brees has torn his labrum. The labrum is a very different type of cartilage in the joints. It was torn from the bone when Drew attempted to recover a fumble that was created when he was sacked from behind by John Lynch. This isn’t the time to talk about how poorly that side of the offensive line has been playing in the absence of Roman Oben. When Drew was landed on by 43 different Donkeys, his shoulder dislocated from the joint and the cartilage was torn from the bone. The problem that now presents itself is that this is not like a normal dislocation of the shoulder. The labrum deepens the socket and stabilizes the bone when it is in it’s normal position in the joint. For whatever reason, the procedure for repair of this type of cartilage does not fully repair the injury. In throwing sports, i.e. pitchers and quarterbacks, the surgery/rehab does not fully correct the problem. In fact, this can be career threatening. As far as I know, there have not been many success stories for people who have had this procedure who in fact have one of those jobs where throwing a ball is their main priority. In the past few years, there have have been two quarterbacks that I know of that have had this procedure, both are now out of professional football. Troy Glaus and Todd Greene have had this procedure and have recovered, although, neither are required to throw 100 pitches, or 40 passes per game.

Management’s assessment will now be more interesting. We do have a young top draft pick who is being paid significant amounts of money to hold a clipboard. We now have a quarterback who a) has no contract, b) has a very significant injury, and c) slightly regressed from his pro bowl 2004. I could already see some signs that management was not fully supporting Brees after we secured our January tee times. Now that his arm is in question, I cannot imagine seeing him in a Charger uniform next year. I am not sure I have completely registered this to date.

I don’t know if this could have been avoided. I did mention before the kickoff that I was a bit disappointed that the North Carolina State standout was not getting the start. I was hoping to see a lot of Phillip Rivers handing off to Michael Turner, and not a whole lot of #9 and #21. I didn’t think that anything like this would happen, but I would be lying if I said that I was happy to see Drew and Ladainian playing in this game. Ten wins be damned, look what happened. I have been making light of the coaching problems that we have. I did not expect this. I will have more to say when this really settles in.

Labrum info found here:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/orthopedicsurgery/labrumtear.html