DEL.ICIO.USFalcons’ Todd Weiner ‘refuses to quit’
Tackle plays through pain of surgically repaired left knee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Flowery Branch — It’s no longer just his wife, Sunny, who sees the pain Todd Weiner lives with in his surgically repaired left knee, or his daughter Audrey, 8, who can recognize when he needs an ice pack.
It’s not fellow Falcons offensive linemen Todd McClure or Tyson Clabo, who see what Weiner goes through and wonder if they could do what he’s doing.
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Todd Weiner, who had reconstructive surgery on his knee in December, has started five games in place of the injured left tackle Sam Baker.
It’s friends in the stands at the Georgia Dome, who watch him hobble out of the tunnel for pre-game introductions and call him afterward.
They want to know: If he can hardly walk, how can he play professional football?
“I’m working with what I have right now,” Weiner explains. “Can’t trade this body in.”
They want to know why he’s even playing at all? His answer for that is short.
“Once it’s over,” he said. “It’s over.”
Weiner, 33, is playing his 11th season in the NFL. He has had left knee “scoped” two or three times, but it deteriorated to where he needed reconstructive surgery in December.
He had what’s called an osteotomy, where bone is cut and the knee is realigned, and a microfracture, which attempts to regenerate cartilage by poking tiny holes in bone and drawing stem cells to the surface.
“As far as I know, I don’t think there’s been an NFL athlete that’s done it and come back and played,” Weiner said.
Detroit Red Wings great Steve Yzerman came back from an osteotomy and microfracture surgery and played parts of three more seasons. Otherwise it’s unheard of.
“I don’t think it’s a surgery you’re going to see performed routinely for professional athletes,” said Dr. Scott Kimmerly, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Emory and Chief of Sports Medicine services at Grady Hospital.
Kimmerly trained for a year in Vail, Colo., under Dr. Richard Steadman, who pioneered microfracture surgery and performed it on NFL players such as Bruce Smith and Rod Woodson.
Athletes come back from it, but microfracture surgery alone, without an osteotomy, can take extended recovery time.
“[Steadman] is probably the foremost expert on the procedure, and he will tell you it’s a year before you’re returning,” Kimmerly said. “You’re giving that cartilage time to mature and heal.”
Weiner was back on the field in late July. He hasn’t missed a game.
“The guys in this building, the medical staff, they were pretty positive, they knew my work ethic,” Weiner said. “They weren’t going to put any limits on me, but people outside in the medical community were saying, ‘There’s no way.’ It’s not a common thing to come back from, which motivated me even more.”
The Falcons’ policy is not to make team doctors available for comment.
Weiner has started five games in place of the injured left tackle Sam Baker. He played every snap of Sunday’s loss to Denver.
“He’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever been around,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “It’s really amazing to see him go out there and play, not being 100 percent, and play with the production he has.”
Weiner is among the last to leave the training room after games. He returns Monday to check the swelling and start his regimen of treatment two or three times a day.
Tuesday and Wednesday he’s still fighting pain, but by Thursday or Friday, he said, he’s starting to feel stronger and ready to go for Sunday.
“It’s a fight for him every week,” McClure said. “I don’t know if I could do what he’s doing. He’s sacrificing his body for this team. That’s the type of guy that he is.”
Offensive linemen are known for toughness and quietly enduring pain. But even to them, this is different.
“It’s extraordinary,” Clabo said. “I can’t tell you that if I were him, I’d be doing it. He just refuses to quit.”
Weiner said his teammates are among those who ask him what it might mean for his body over the long haul. He and his wife have regular conversations about the risks.
“When all of it’s gone, all the cheering and all the fans, I want to make sure he can still enjoy life with his kids,” said Sunny Weiner of their children, Audrey, Austin and Asher. “He’s still out playing with them, throwing the baseball, or showing them how to do a certain kick with the soccer ball. I want to make sure he can still do that when he’s done.”
Weiner figures he’s got knee-replacement surgery coming anyway, so why not get the most out of his knee now?
“I tell my wife all the time it’s like when you have a big test at school and you studied really hard for it,” Weiner said. “You don’t feel that good that day. You have the choice whether to go and do it or stay home. That feeling of staying home is just the worst feeling in the world. You feel like you should have been there, you could have been there, but you made a decision not to and that’s something that I hate living with.”
He appeals to her athletic side, too. Sunny played basketball at Kansas State, where they met.
“You only have a chance to play this game so long and every time I come out of the tunnel, every time I’m on the field with this group of guys, I just crave it more and more,” Weiner said. “I played with a lot of guys that are my age that are retired now, and they’d do anything to come back and step out on that field. That really motivates me.”
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