Falcons center Alex Mack, who was second-team All-Pro last season, has recovered from the broken fibula in his left foot that slowed him in the Super Bowl.
He suffered the injury in the third quarter of the NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers.
“Oh, it hurt,” Mack said Tuesday after working out during the team’s offseason conditioning program. “But I was so glad to be able to be out there. To play on that stage has been a lifelong goal of mine, to have that be actualized was amazing.”
While Mack turned in a gutsy performance against New England his weakness, especially after halftime, was exploited as the Patriots had five sacks and 12 quarterback hits.
“It was a tough experience,” Mack said. “It was really a tough loss. But it was … life lessons. It goes to who you are and you go from there.”
Mack, who toiled in the NFL for seven seasons with the Cleveland Browns before signing with the Falcons as a free agent in 2016, never thought about not playing in the Super Bowl.
“After the Packer game was the most it hurt, right after I broke it,” Mack said. “I could barely walk on it. It hurt a lot, but I was able to like, two weeks later move around really comfortably.”
The injury did not require surgery.
“A broken fibula, there is a lot of stuff around it to kind of keep it in place,” Mack said. “It was a non-displaced fracture. It was just one of those things that was going to heal better and faster if you just left it alone.”
