When Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles four plays into the season on , it stirred familiar feelings around the nation, and not just because something bad happened to the Jets.
Some, like the NFL Players Association and Rodgers’s former teammate David Bakhtiari, saw it as another example of artificial turf causing an injury. Others got flashbacks to 2019, when Kevin Durant sat out several Warriors playoff games with a Grade 1 right calf strain, returned for Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and promptly tore his right Achilles. Rodgers, after all, battled a calf injury this year.
Did turf cause the injury? Did his calf strain make him vulnerable? Was it a fluke? Could the Jets have seen this coming—and therefore taken preventative steps? Is there any way to predict Achilles tears?
There are a lot of questions, and if we could find solid answers, we could change careers and alter the trajectory of franchises.
A torn Achilles is often called the worst injury in sports, which isn’t quite accurate. The worst injury in sports is—obviously—getting run over by a Zamboni. But a torn Achilles might be the most injury in sports, because the rehabilitation process is long and brutal, many athletes never make it back and those who do rarely perform at the same level. Other injuries happen more frequently. But Achilles tears are particularly devastating.
I talked to three Achilles tendon experts about Rodgers’s injury specifically and Achilles tears generally. The answers were not conclusive, but they were insightful. They left me believing that we should, at the least, stop accepting Achilles tears as tragic flukes and start asking whether it is possible to reduce the risk.
Let’s start with Rodgers. Connecting his Achilles tear to his calf injury sounds logical.The problem? While Rodgers has injured his left calf in the past, it is not clear that he injured it this year. He injured his calf and took significant time off in the spring, but that was his right calf. In August, he did indeed grab his left calf in training camp, which spawned headlines and conversation, but there was no indication he actually injured it.
There is some dark humor in Aaron “I’ve been immunized” Rodgers being the subject of a medical conspiracy theory. But the implication that a recent calf injury led directly to his injury this week is not supported by the facts or science.
Could previous calf injuries have contributed? Dr. Nigel Hsu of Johns Hopkins says, “I have personally seen patients who’ve had some calf injury and then later had an Achilles rupture.” But he watched the video of Rodgers’s injury and says, “His foot got caught, and the ankle dorsiflexed [the backward bending and contracting of your foot], so the calf strain was probably not related.”
As for the MetLife Stadium turf: It may cause injuries, but it is unlikely to have caused injury. Hsu says: “It’s not like slipping or how the ground is gripping causes the Achilles rupture.”
Dr. James Holmes of the University of Michigan says, “I don’t think this was a turf or no-turf thing.”
