Most Cayman Island vacationers usually check out the local beaches, the rum, the caves, the shopping, and the turtles.
Miami Dolphins linebacker Jaelan Phillips had another item on his itinerary earlier this month: The gym.
Injury Updates for Miami Dolphins’ Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb
Both Phillips — now four full months removed from an Achilles rupture — and fellow Dolphins pass rusher Bradley Chubb — who tore his ACL on New Year’s Eve — live by the “no days off” credo. Even when they’re on vacation.
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That’s why the Dolphins basically had to change the locks of team HQ in recent weeks. They were concerned Phillips and Chubb were actually doing too much.
“Those two individuals, Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips, are extreme versions of, ‘Hey, we need to make sure they aren’t chasing a timeline because as competitors, they will achieve that timeline, and it might be at the worst for their bodies,’” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said at the NFL‘s Annual League Meeting earlier this week.
“So relative to timelines, we specifically don’t have those for those two,” McDaniel continued. “We’ve had to mandate that they have a week off of rehab just recently, both of them, because they literally live there. They have a pseudo-tape on the floor parking spots for their little scooters that they’ve graduated from.
“They’re both really doing exactly what you’d expect from those two individuals, which is absolutely attacking that process, but doing it from a perspective that they don’t want to get healthy for one week, they want to get healthy for the whole season. So that’s what they’re working towards.”
Yes, “the whole season” is the goal for both.
But is it realistic?
While it’s natural to lump the two together, it’s important to remember that they are two totally different people with two totally different injuries.
The broadly accepted return-to-play timeline for ACL tears is nine to 12 months. So even in a best-case scenario, Chubb would miss all of training camp and likely the start of the season.
But a study by Duke and Drexel researchers published on the National Library of Medicine’s website found that linebackers who tear their ACLs have a median return-to-play of 13 months.
What’s more, players at that position who suffer that injury, along with running backs and defensive linemen, “experienced the largest decrease in their postinjury performance.”
The more your position requires you to cut, the harder it is to make a full recovery.
Achilles tears, while certainly not the career death sentence they were a generation ago, still remain quite dicey as well. The return-to-play timeline is roughly the same as an ACL recovery, which means Phillips — who got hurt the day after Thanksgiving — seemingly has a better chance of playing in the opener than Chubb.
But how effective will he be?
The results of a study conducted in 2017 by an eight-person team of experts weren’t super encouraging.
“Postoperative performance scores were significantly worse for running backs and linebackers compared to preoperative scores. [Linebackers] had significantly worse postoperative performance scores when compared to matched controls.”
Of course, the science has improved in the seven years since, and Phillips — like Chubb — has few peers in terms of dedication to rehab.
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