The Falcons have a tough decision this week regarding All-Pro wide receiver Julio Jones and his turf toe injury.
He didn’t practice again on Thursday and while the team remains optimistic that he’ll play against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.
Turf toe is a painful injury and depending on the severity it could be career-threatening.
Ken Jung, a foot and ankle surgeon at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, discussed the nature of turf toe injuries with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Here’s what he had to say:
On the medical nature of a turf toe injury:
“There are two sesamoid bones underneath the first metatarsal. Just underneath the ball of your big toe. But that’s hard. The bones are like your knee cap. They are actually bones within tendons along the bottom of the big toe. They make up the complex that we call the plantar plate. There are the sesamoid bones with the tendons. There are three tendons down there. Seasmoid bones are in two of them and then three ligament structures that we call a joint capsule. Those all make up the plantar plate. They provide stability to the big toe. So when a turf toe injury occurs, the big toe gets hyper extended and lifts up and ends up tearing the tissues on the bottom. The degree of injury depends on how much of the tissue is injured or torn.”
Matt Ryan, after he missed two games with turf toe, played with a steel plate in is shoe. Is that common:
“Since the injury is caused by the toe getting bent up. What we’ll try to do is treat it or protect the joint is restrict the toe from bending upward. You can put a steel plate in the shoe. It’s very thin plate steel or carbon fiber and that just stiffens up the front of the shoe underneath the big toe. You can tape as well to restrict the toe from bending upward.”
How hard is it to run, plant and jump with turf toe:
“Running and pushing off for anyone that plays an explosive position like Julio Jones or any receiver, defensive back or even a linebacker for that matter, where you have to push off, stop and go, cut; you’ll definitely feel it more.”
Should a player rest with the turf toe injury:
“It depends on the degree and how comfortable he is when they do stabilize it. Using a steel plate or even a tape job. If you’re able to keep him comfortable on it and he’s able to push-off, that will determined when he’s able to go on it. In a severe situation it could lead to something surgical if it’s grossly unstable.”
Jack Lambert had to retire in 1984 with a turf toe injury. Can turf toe be career- threatening even given the medical advances since then:
“Back then we didn’t know as much. The joint, basically gets unstable, they get a lot of pain and then they end up getting arthritic in the joint. Any football player who has to push-off and do explosive activities, they can lose that push off and their on field performance would obviously be affected….they lose that explosiveness and ability to push off. ”
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