In the modern age of sports medicine, some of the previous career-ending injuries before the ’90s have turned into 6-8 month rehabs for the modern athlete. Steelers Big Ben’s elbow injury could go one of two ways: a rebound or a devastating conclusion.
The NFL, and sports in general, is a game of comparison. Who is or is not the GOAT? Whose offense resembles that of the greatest show on turf? Whose defense resembles that of the Steelers?
In today’s modern sports medicine, the comparison of career recoveries to career-ending injuries pre-90’s is incredible. A torn ACL was once considered a career-ending injury. Today? We saw Adrian Peterson make a historic return less than a year after his injury in 2012.
Today, the Steelers are looking at the mirror of their quarterbacks: Ben Roethlisberger and Terry Bradshaw. The similarities are there. An elbow injury with a lot of question marks that ultimately led the blonde bomber to retirement.
The other quarterback? It remains to be seen. Even though Ben has stated he feels younger and is throwing without pain for the first time in years, the mysterious injury has left a lot of speculation for his expectations of 2020.
After researching similar injuries, with and without surgeries, and a similar age range of rehabilitation for a near career-ending injury, I believe this is not exactly an unfamiliar scenario in the modern sports medicine era.
Today we look at three previous quarterback injuries that can be a guide for expectations for Roethlisberger’s 2020 season…