Every year there are over 100,000 Americans who tear their anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL’s). Some of those are professional players in major sports such as basketball, soccer and football. Some of those major knee injuries occur in the National Football League and are horrifying for the player and the team. The player because he has worked his *** of in the grueling off-season and now it all crumbles in one play. It is horrifying for the team because they have lost a key piece to the team., a leader, a mentor and a great talent. Unfortunately, the Miami Dolphins and the NFL witnessed it to one of their best.
Its week seven of the NFL regular season. The Miami Dolphins are playing their rival New England Patriots at home. The Patriots are winning the game by a large margin as they attempt to continue their run at history at the beloved 1972 undefeated season posted only by their rivals, the Dolphins. While the Patriots continue their successful season, the Dolphins are on the opposite end of it. They are winless and have a new coach . Their only bright spot in the thus far forgetful season is their franchise tail back, Ronnie Brown. Brown, who is finally quieting his doubters with his play so far in to the season by leading the league in yards from scrimmage and well on his way to the Pro Bowl, is making plays left and right against one of the top defenses in New England. Then the new head coach calls a passing play, the pass is intercepted. Ronnie Brown goes after the Cornerback to make the tackle and the nightmare occurs. Fans gasp and it is silent in the stadium. The franchise back is laying on the ground. Team doctors take the beloved Brown in to the locker room. A day later, reports come out, the team did an MRI on the RB and has discovered that he has an ACL tear. He is listed as out for the remainder of the season. The rest of the Dolphins season goes down the drain as well, finishing with a 1-15 record and many questions surrounding the health of their key player for the next season.
A typical recovery session for a torn ACL is nine to twelve months. It has been ten months and six days since Ronnie Brown tore his ACL. It still leaves many questions surrounding the player for the upcoming season such as how many yards he can achieve and how much of the load can he handle. I was interested and wanted to see for myself so I crunched some numbers.
Over the last decade, we have seen very good Running Backs go down because of torn ACL’s. Names such as Terrell Davis, Jamal Anderson, Edgerrin James and Jamal Lewis. Those names have had productive seasons prior to the ACL tear but how did they fair after it?
Terrell Davis
Davis tore his ACL in 1999 after four games. In 1998, Terrell Davis had a 2,000 yard season, 2008 to be exact. The season after the tear, he didn’t fair as well. Davis ran for 282 yards and the surgery ended his career only a year later.
Season prior to Injury - 392 carries, 2,008 yards, 5.1 ypc
Season after injury - 78 carries,282 yards, 3.6 ypc
Jamal Anderson
Anderson had just came off one of the most productive RB seasons in the NFL in ‘98, topping 1,846 yards. Anderson would end up tearing his ACL only 2 games into the season. The following season, after the surgery, Anderson came back with 1,024 yards but on 282 carries which equals out to a 3.6 ypc average.
Season prior to injury - 410 carries, 1,846 yards, 4.5 ypc
Season after injury - 282 carries, 1024 yards, 3.6 ypc
Edgerrin James
Edgerrin James was coming off of two straight rushing titles in his first two years in the league and then he suffered a set back. In 2001, 6 games into his season (like Brown), he suffered a torn ACL. The season before his injury, he had 387 carries, 1,709 and 4.4 yards per carry. The season after the surgery went well compared to the listed above. James finished with 989 yards on 277 carries and a 3.6 ypc average.
Season prior to injury - 387 carries, 1,709 and 4.4 yards per carry
Season after injury - 277 carries, 989 yards and 3.6 ypc.
Jamal Lewis
Jamal Lewis was an instant star coming out of college and into the NFL, rushing for 1,364 yards on 309 carries and a 4.4 ypc average. In the off-season, he tore up his knee and was out for the whole upcoming season. The diagnosis was a torn ACL. The season after the injury, Lewis came back strong. He rushed for 1,327 yards on 308 carries and a 4.3 ypc average.
Season prior to injury: 309 carries, 1,364 yards and 4.4 ypc
Season after injury: 308 carries, 1,327 yards, 4.3 ypc.
After calculations, the average rushing total for the RB’s after the ACL injury is 905 yards on an average of 236 carries a season and an average of 3.7 ypc.
The average number can be expected of Ronnie Brown as well because of a couple of reasons. He is likely to receive a similar amount of carries this season (236). He has a teammate in the backfield that he will be sharing the ball with in Ricky Williams. The last time the two teamed up, Brown had 207 carries for 907 yards.
The other reason being is that he would be fully healthy come September. It would be 12 full months since Ronnie Brown’s injury. He is expected to be eased back into the lineup although he has been taking part in Training Camp and other off-season activities.
Thanks for reading.
please discuss. :wink2:
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Bpk likes this.
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I will believe he can play a whole year injury free when I see it. Frankly, given how high we drafted him, the guy has not produced for us so far.
alen1 likes this. -
That's a good point that he hasn't played a full season. I probably should have added that in the report. I just did the calculations and according to them, the average games played in the following season (of those players) was 12 total. Ronnie Brown's average thus far in his career is 11 games per season. -
Keep in mind though, all of those guys were #1 Running Backs, when they came back, they were expected to be #1 Running Backs.
We don't have to rely on Ronnie for that this year, we have Ricky to split the load with him, so his return is not as important as say TD's in Denver that next year.alen1 likes this. -
Nice post Alen. The more I read in TC reports, the more it sounds like Ronnie could be ready week 1. I sure hope thats the case. Hopefully he is able to make it through the entire year without some freak injury again
alen1 likes this. -
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Nice write-up bro.
236 carries would work out to 14.75 carries per game, which sounds about right.
I'd expect Ronnie to get about 10-15 carries, with Ricky getting around 5-10. I'd expect to see Ronnie get around 950 yards this year, with Ricky picking up around 525. If we actually get that kind of production from them, we should be competitive in a lot of games.alen1 likes this. -
Good research and well thought out logic. With RB coming off the injury and this being a new team and all, it wouldnt surprise me to see him averaging 5-10 carries per gamefor the first few games with Ricky & our intriguing young backs getting some PT.
alen1 likes this. -
Nice work Alen, I think you made made more nervous than I was though...We are very lucky that we do not have to rush Ronnie anywhere this season. Having said that, we could still have one of the best backfields in football by seasons end.
alen1 likes this. -
cnc66 likes this.
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I think he'll have 600 to 1'000 yards this year.If he's 100% or even near it.
RW is going to be pushing him so much he won't have time to worry about getting hurt again.He'll be more worried about fighting for his job.
Everyone here should remember RB is a top 5 RB in the nfl.Also everyone should remember LT only became the 1# RB because RW couldn't stop smoking pot.
If they both can stay clean and healthy.This could be a very good year to be a dolfan.
I think this year is all about RB and RW.alen1 likes this. -
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Great post bro. What I would expect from is him trying to get past his injury and maybe towards the half ,mark of the season or towards the end he will start going back to his old ways and start running over people and being great
alen1 likes this. -
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1) I think Ronnie had a partial tear of the ACL, not a complete one. I am not sure the other running backs had the same types of tear. The severity of the tear, of course, has a huge impact on the recovery.
This article discusses the same thing as the thread:
http://proathletesonly.com/news/loc...acl-rehab-warnings-from-fellow-running-backs/
One quote from it is, "Davis, unlike Brown, also had a torn medial collateral ligament."
So Ronnie may recover better. The main advice in the article was that Ronnie had to wait until he had complete faith in the knee, so he didn't get into the catastrophic habit of hesitating before cutting on it. Sound like good advice.
2) With Henning's offense and our personnel (good run-blocking O-linemen, no established QB, weak WR corps) we expect an offense which runs a LOT. Last year, the four teams that rushed the most in the NFL were the Titans (543 att), Jags (522 att), Steelers (511) and Raiders (508). That probably puts us at around 500 attempts for this year, imo. I think that for the first half of the season we will see Ricky get 65% or those carries. assuming about 31 carries per game, that means around 21 carries for Ricky and 10 carries for Ronnie. After around four weeks I think it'll balance out to 50/50, so about 15 carries per game for Ronnie.
Overall, then, I'd expect Ronnie to have around 200-220 carries this season. Let's say 210.
3) YPC. Well, we all know this figure goes down after an ACL. Ronnie was averaging 5.1 yards per carry. Perhaps this drops a maximum of 1 full yard per carry, or as little as a quarter of a yeard per carry. I'll split the difference and say he'll drop by .6 yards per carry. That puts Ronnie at about 4.5 yds per carry, assuming all that changed was his knee. That's a very respectable YPC.
4) Unfortunately, other things changed besides Ronnie's knee. Ronnie was rushing for those yards when we still had Trent Green throwing the ball to Chris Chambers, and Cam Cameron scheming the offensive plays. Now, we sucked last year, but the offense actually looked so so early on (compared to later with Beck and no Chambers, when it went something like 15 quarters without a touchdown). So, remember that this year we have an unsettled QB situation, an offensive coordinator, Henning, who is probably more predictable (Cam was a good OC) and fewer downfield threats to scare defenses. That means more defenses will play the run against us, and Ronnie will face tighter run defense. I think it'll make it harder to earn yards this year than in the first few games of last year, when Cam's offense kept defenses more spread and guessing.
Accounting for our predictable run-run-run-punt offense this year... I expect to lose another yard off Ronnie's average. That's NOT Ronnie's fault, though.
So, from the 4.5 estimate for the knee injury I now expect to see it fall to 3.5 YPC. overall. That comes to 735 yards this year (on the ground) for Ronnie.
Now... all of that will probably change one the real games start. Ricky may come on so strong that he gets to keep the majority of carries "to help Ronnie rest his knee properly". Or, Ronnie may tweak a hammy because his running mechanics are different as he compensates for the knee (often a new weakness leads to changed mechanics, overly stressing other parts in ways to which the are not accustomed). Or Ricky could get hurt and Ronnie will carry more of the load than I expect.
All I know is, at least I won't have to wonder why Jesse Chatman is our #1 RB this year.
:)
Good luck Ronnie!
Great thread, alen.Last edited: Jul 28, 2008alen1 likes this. -
Nice post. Now I havn't looked anything up yet, but something else to consider is the wear and tear of the player before the injury. Brown shared carries in college so he doesn't have that wear and tear that some running backs do prior to the acl tear. Not sure if there is any correlation there, but I think I am going to look.
alen1 likes this. -
Alen; great job. I'm impressed.
As to the subject itself: my understanding of the dynamics of the recovery is that once the physical healing is complete, there's still a certain amount of mental healing, if you will, that also has to occur in order to completely "come back". To begin with the person has fears and doubts concerning durability and/or sustaining another tear, etc. This in turn leads to thinking too much or being timid. So it's an individual time table for each person as to how long before he quits worrying about the injury and just plays. So it can take as long as 2 years before a player is all the way back to form. Of course, too, some never get back.
Anyway you did a nice job and it was put together very well. I'm looking forward to more. :up:alen1 likes this. -
Thanks, glad to hear you liked it.
I agree with you. I think it will take time to mentally and phyiscally recover from the knee injury. In the post, I was just trying to see what we can expect statistically from Ronnie Brown. I hope in the end, he comes back stronger which I think is a good possibility as there have been medical advances since some of those injuries occurred. Edgerrin James has come back strong and his injury occurred in almost a decade ago.
Thanks again. -
Around 225 carries and a down season I guess you could say as many here have high hopes for Ronnie. Its going to take him a while to get back into the swing of things and how well the Quarterback, whoever that is, is able to move the ball through the air will affect him dealry as well. Having Ricky back is going to help a lot and for the first month or so I wouldn't be surprised to see Ronnie carry it no more than 15 times a game.
alen1 likes this. -
I don't think that RB will have 200 carries this year, for two reasons:
1) RW will start, and is the better running back
2) Why risk rushing Ronnie back when we have RW?
Everyone knows how talented RW is- the early reports are not only that he's the dominant running back in camp, but that he's clearly the most impressive player on the whole team. Ronnie will have his chance to put up big numbers- just not this year. -
I really don't think the knee is going to affect him, I think the bigger issue will be how good Ricky plays and how many carries he gets. If Ricky looks like a stud of course it will take away carries from Ronnie but if they both look really good who knows???
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Carries Leading Up To Injury
Jamal Lewis
NFL Carries Prior To Injury: 309
Terrell Davis
NFL Carries Prior To Injury: 1,410
Jamal Anderson
NFL Carries Prior To Injury: 992
Edgerrin James
NFL Carries Prior To Injury: 1058
Deuce McAllister
NFL Carries Prior To Injury: 1,147
Ronnie Brown
NFL Carries Prior To Injury: 567
I included the carries that they had in the injured season as well. Obviously there is a huge disparity between the carries of Ronnie Brown and the others which should make it a easier recovery. I had no luck finding the college statistics. -
I thought I'd bump this thread to see how Ronnie compared to the calculations. The averages of the tailbacks coming off a torn ACL was 905 yards on 236 carries. Ronnie Brown finished the regular season with 916 yards on 214 carries according to NFL.com.
I think he's had a very productive season. I realize that the technology is much better now and there have been medical advances but coming off an ACL injury is no cake-walk. He's had a very good season and could have had a better one if not for the philosophy of our coaches.Frumundah Finnatic likes this.
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