Here's another study, or maybe even the same one analyzed differently, from the American Journal of Sports medicine. It looks at 24 NFL players who suffered patellar tendon injury (22 complete rupture, 2 partial tear, 3 with concomitant ACL tears). Note that these are relatively small numbers because patellar tendon rupture is relatively uncommon.

LINK

The study says that 19 of the 24 returned to play at least one game. Average games played after return was 45. The players who returned were on averaged drafted in round 4, those who didn't return averaged round 6 of the draft. Here's the article conclusion:

quote:
Although this is usually a season-ending injury when it occurs in isolation, acute surgical repair generally produces good functional results and allows for return to play the following season. Players chosen earlier in the draft are more likely to return to play.

There are some relevant points not mentioned in the article I cited above. They don't break down ages of the players, but obviously any injury that involves lengthy rehab is more likely to end the career as a player ages. They're already closer to retirement, their body doesn't heal as well as a younger man, their previous general physical status is harder to regain after a training halt. Due to all of those factors, I would expect college players to regain function significantly better and faster than NFL players on average.

The fact that returnees were drafted earlier than non-returnees suggests that more of the latter group may have been marginal NFL players whose jobs were already at risk. Better players are more likely to recover to a high level of function because they have a better opportunity to return to a team.

From the article you quoted,

quote:
only 50 percent of players returned after having surgery on torn patellar tendons. That's particularly daunting considering that 79.4 percent of players returned to play after orthopaedic procedures in general

Like I said earlier, the variance is high, but the article I quoted found ~80% returned. As an aside, in my opinion "orthopaedic procedures in general" is not a useful comparison because it includes lots of lesser procedures like meniscus repair, etc.

I haven't seen any recent studies that compare procedures for ACL reconstruction to patellar tendon reconstruction but my guess is that with the current state of treatment/rehab, if you stratify for age and talent the recovery outcomes are fairly similar. I have read that the incidence of re-rupture after patellar tendon reconstruction is very low.

Anyway, Branson had no concomitant injury to my knowledge, is young, talented and incentivized to continue his career. So, I'll stick with saying that he has a good chance of regaining full function. If that happens, when it might be and whether it happens at UGA is obviously uncertain.

This post was edited on 5/7/24 at 2:14 pm