Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill went down with a non-contact injury Thursday that was thought to be a potential a season-ender for him. Thankfully he dodged a bullet, with his MRI coming back clean.
Sigh of relief for #Dolphins. Member of org says no structural damage for Ryan Tannehill, knee same now as in am.
— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) August 3, 2017
While no structural damage for Ryan Tannehill, member of org says it DID buckle and so #Dolphins have to think how to proceed after scare.
— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) August 3, 2017
When you take a look at the play in which Ryan Tannehill was injured, it looked bad. Really bad.
He’s rolling out to his right to escape pressure when he darts to the sideline and makes the slightest of cuts before crumpling to the ground in a heap. And this was with a knee brace supporting his recovered left knee.
Ryan Tannehill's injury doesn't look good at all. pic.twitter.com/wKqcQSdH5V
— Jordan Heck (@JordanHeckFF) August 3, 2017
When Tannehill hurt his knee last year, it was diagnosed as a partial ACL tear. On this same knee.
“You can see the obvious and fast reaction from Ryan Tannehill — throws the football away,” NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport said of the injury. “The clear concern on his part, as you see right here him roll out and eventually fall to the ground. Clear concern on his part that this was an injury that he needed to worry about. No further word yet on what it actually is, but the vibe from the building from those who know Ryan Tannehill, at this point it is not good. They are clearly nervous, they are clearly worried about his injury — that should be taken very seriously. And by the way, he was also wearing a brace on that left knee. He did have the partial ACL tear [from last season].”
He opted not to have surgery, however, and thankfully that decision did not come back to haunt him.
https://twitter.com/Cianaf/status/893140900590833664
On the one hand, it’s easy to understand why Tannehill didn’t want to take the surgery route. ACL surgeries require six-to-nine months of recovery on average. If he had done that, then the start of the regular season would have been in doubt, and he would have missed a lot of offseason practices, if not all of training camp.
The Dolphins are a team on the rise. They won 10 games last year and made the playoffs for the first time since 2008. Head coach Adam Gase appears to speak Tannehill’s language, and the quarterback had the most successful season of his career last year before he went down with the knee injury in December.
So Tannehill didn’t want to lose any of that momentum. He wanted to get back into action quickly and was told that surgery wouldn’t be needed to achieve that goal. Thankfully in this case, he is going to be okay. But that wasn’t a fun ride for anyone in Miami.