Brown ready for game-day test of torn ACL

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/dolphins/content/sports/epaper/2008/08/06/a1c_fins_0807.html

Brown ready for game-day test of torn ACL

By BEN VOLIN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

DAVIE — Two months ago, when the Dolphins' gathered for their first practice of the spring, running back Ronnie Brown took a big step.

He planted his right foot firmly in the turf and gave his knee a twist.

The gesture symbolized the progress Brown had made since he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee Oct. 21.

Nine months after having surgery to repair the ligament, he has a chance to return to game action Saturday night when Tampa Bay visits Dolphin Stadium.

Coach Tony Sparano has not said whether Brown will play, but he says he is ready to go.

"It took a lot of work to get back," Brown said Wednesday after completing his 11th day of full-contact practices without missing a snap. "It was a long process. There were some tough days. But you just have to keep that positive attitude and approach your rehab like a game."

Brown is running, planting and cutting without a knee brace and bouncing up quickly after contact. He bounced back from surgery sooner than some expected.

"The thing you hear about the ACL is a year and a half to come back," running back Ricky Williams said. "But since the first day of workouts, Ronnie has looked incredible."

The ACL connects the thigh bone to the shin bone and provides stability to the knee joint. While a torn ACL once was a career-ender, advances in surgical techniques - including arthroscopic procedures that don't require large incisions - and rehabilitation have made it a manageable injury.

As Brown's teammates lost eight of nine games without him, finishing 1-15, he quietly rehabbed six or seven days a week at team headquarters with head athletic trainer Kevin O'Neill. Brown remained in Davie this off-season to rehab, instead of training in Phoenix as he usually does.

Within two months of surgery, Brown was running in a pool. Soon he moved to a treadmill for flat-ground running, and later incline running.

The Dolphins' doctors and athletic trainers don't comment on their injured players, but Dr. James Carey, an orthopedist for the University of Vanderbilt athletic department, said athletes of all levels - from elite NFL players to weekend warriors - can expect to return to their sports with six to nine months of rehab.

So Brown is right on schedule.

"Arthroscopy wasn't invented in Gale Sayers' time," Carey said, referring to the Chicago Bears' running back whose career was cut short by knee injuries.

The fact that Brown tore only his ACL, and no other knee ligaments, bodes well for his return, Carey said. In 2006, he published a study in the American Journal for Sports Medicine that said that 80 percent of NFL receivers and running backs return to play after ACL reconstruction.

The 20 percent who don't make it back, Carey said, ruptured multiple knee ligaments, were too old to return to the NFL or simply were marginal players.

Brown is 26 and led the NFL with 991 total yards when he was hurt in Week 7 against New England. No one has questioned his ability or desire.

"All off-season running our sprints, I had to catch up to him," Williams said. "I always knew he had it athletically, but then you see what kind of heart he has, nothing is going to slow him down. It's inspiring."

Brown is joining a large group of NFL running backs who have returned from a torn ACL. Jamal Lewis missed the 2001 season for Baltimore, but rushed for 1,327 yards in '02 and 2,066 in '03. Washington's Terry Allen rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of the three seasons following his ACL surgery in 1993. He even scored 21 touchdowns in his third season back. Edgerrin James has topped 1,100 rushing yards in five of his six post-surgery seasons, thriving along with other former University of Miami stars such as Willis McGahee and Frank Gore.

Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder, 24, had four ACL reconstruction surgeries before he graduated from high school.

"It's all about having confidence," Crowder said of playing after such injuries, "that you can stick the thing in the ground and do what I used to do."

When running back Jamal Anderson returned to Atlanta in 2000 after tearing his ACL in 1999, his teammates called him "Wolverine," the X-Men character with super-human healing ability. Anderson started all 16 games that year and rushed for 1,024 yards. But he averaged only 3.6 yards per carry, down from 4.5 in '98.

"I didn't feel really good until probably seven games in," Anderson said of his comeback season. "The biggest thing for me was the mental block, getting confident that it's not going to happen again, to trust that the surgery was completed successfully and you can go at it 100 miles per hour."

Anderson, who retired after the 2001 season, expects Brown to be 100 percent this year. "I don't think you'll be writing too much about this two to three weeks into the season," Anderson said. "It's going to be, 'Oh yeah, by the way, he blew out his knee last year.' It will be a footnote."