Great article. Have you ever considered writing about the difference between an NFL recovery period and method versus a non-professional athletes recovery period for a similar injury? Like Alex Anzalones broken forearm surgery and recovery against a standard forearm break?
This is a great topic that also fascinates me. I'll try to give a longer answer in a future article, but quick thoughts. Recovery and healing can be difficult things to measure. In general, I suspect recoveries are very similar when matched for age (esp fracture like Anzalone).
The big difference is that NFL careers have a very urgent timeline (given the money and importance of each game) that incentivizes players to return asap. In the "real" world, it would be rare to have that kind of urgency so people can take their time to to have a safe, gradual recovery, thus making the recoveries seem longer in comparison.
Great article. Have you ever considered writing about the difference between an NFL recovery period and method versus a non-professional athletes recovery period for a similar injury? Like Alex Anzalones broken forearm surgery and recovery against a standard forearm break?
This is a great topic that also fascinates me. I'll try to give a longer answer in a future article, but quick thoughts. Recovery and healing can be difficult things to measure. In general, I suspect recoveries are very similar when matched for age (esp fracture like Anzalone).
The big difference is that NFL careers have a very urgent timeline (given the money and importance of each game) that incentivizes players to return asap. In the "real" world, it would be rare to have that kind of urgency so people can take their time to to have a safe, gradual recovery, thus making the recoveries seem longer in comparison.