Brandon Gibson Is Done For The Year
By Brian Miller
Yesterday NFL.com’s Albert Breer surmised that Brandon Gibson would be done for the year. He said it was a torn ligament. About right now, Gibson probably wished that were the case. Word is not hitting the street that Gibson has a torn patellar tendon and will have surgery to repair it soon. He will miss the season and for now there is no timetable for a recovery but most believe that he should be ready for next summers camp. The question is how will this affect his future. Will he be more susceptible to future tears?
I have had knee surgery of the simple ortho kind. I fractured my patella my senior year of high-school and have been able to predict the weather every since. The crack that ran down the backside of my knee cap still aches me today but the doctor told me then that I was lucky it wasn’t a tear of the tendon that holds my knee in place.
There are two tendons that hold the knee cap in place. The quadricep tendon that attaches the knee cap (patella) to the thigh muscle and the patellar tendon that attaches the knee cap to the top of the tibia. The patellar tendon is the tendon that allows you to straighten your knee. Gibson was unable to do that leaving the field yesterday.
The fact that he requires surgery leads me to believe that the tear is a total tear as in most cases a partial tear is not always surgically repaired. If this is a full tear the expectation would be that the tendon fully separated from the patella. Surgery for this kind of injury requires the surgeon to drill small holes or use “anchors” on the lower patella and then wire or suture the patella to the knee cap. Rehabilitation would then begin a couple weeks later fully. Recover is dependent on the individual and considering this is a professional sports injury Gibson will have top medical care.
For the Dolphins, replacing Gibson now becomes a job for Rishard Mathews but more importantly the team will need to find someone to replace Mathews as the 4th WR. Miami uses the four wide set often. The coaches opted to keep only four WR’s on the final 53 and lost Marvin McNutt to Carolina three weeks ago and Brian Tyms a week ago. They have two WR’s on the practice squad but neither are considered legit candidates at this point for a 53 spot. The trade deadline is Tuesday at 4 pm but the Dolphins are not expected to attempt to trade for any WR’s instead likely will look at the free agent market or other teams practice squads.