Ryan Shazier was stable enough to return to Pittsburgh after spending multiple nights in Cincinnati, but the frightening injury the linebacker suffered required spinal surgery.
Shazier underwent spinal stabilization surgery on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh, the Steelers announced (on Twitter). Recovery timetables are difficult to pin down at this point.
The 25-year-old player will face a months-long recovery process, sources informed Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link), adding he’s going to miss the rest of this season. In speaking to a spinal doctor, Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes the best-case scenario for a Shazier recovery ranges from six weeks to three months.
“This is a surgery on your spine,” said Brock Bowman, medical director at the Spinal Cord Injury Center at Shepherd Center in Atlanta (via Bouchette). “And if something is altered, even if there was no injury to the spinal cord, that may be enough to take you out of the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the 1 percent who play professional football.”
Bouchette notes it’s difficult to make a projection at this juncture because there aren’t enough details known.
“I’m not worried about him playing for us again; I’m more worried about him,” Steelers DC Keith Butler said Thursday, via Bouchette. “The thing that we’re hopeful for and prayerful for is that he comes back and he’ll be OK. The football stuff is secondary. His life is a lot more important to me than football.”
As for Pittsburgh’s linebacker outlook, the team is moving veteran outside linebacker Arthur Moats inside in this emergency circumstance, the AP reports. The Bills shuttled Moats from outside to inside linebacker during his time in Buffalo, but since relocating to Pittsburgh, Moats has played exclusively on the edge. The 29-year-old Moats has worked as a backup this season but started 24 Steelers games from 2014-16. Pittsburgh also re-signed inside linebacker Sean Spence earlier this week.
was only a matter of time before he seriously injured someone, or himself, theres a reason why leading with the helmet is illegal, not just for someone elses saftey, but yours as well, but i guess the nfl is too busy being distracted by the rings of past glories to ever care about serious punishment for anything the steelers do to themselves or others
Always has to be a tool to push their own grievances or agendas at the unfortunate expense of another. You’re that tool today.
i wish him a good recovery but he did this to himself, nothing else to add
Bengals fan I’m guessing.
Get well soon Shazier. Hope for the best and u to make the best decision on ur own future and not have someone else do it for u.
Good. Then just shut up.
Please enlighten me how one can make a tackle without the head leading the way? If he was trying to spear, he would have been doing so with is body aimed at the waist of the opposing player.
A player is in motion trying to tackle another player who is also in motion trying to avoid getting tackled. When you launch into the tackle, you can not change your direction or angle of your tackle. The opposing player may or may not change their direction or where their body angles are at depending on the time they have to adjust to where the tackler is going. If you intend to put a shoulder into a guy, which shazier probably was, a fraction of a second can change the position of the person being tackled and you hit the guy differently than you intended. Unless one has the ability to move where their head is, your head very likely will make contact because it is the highest point on your body.
Emergency surgery was not needed, as the cord was not being actively compromised. But Wednesday night’s surgery was almost certainly to prevent future damage to the spinal cord. It was likely a fusion surgery with rods, screws and/or metal cage with bone graft to fuse the unstable spine segment. Although football is not at the forefront of anyone’s thoughts now, this surgery itself does not rule Shazier out from football in the future. Fusion takes 4-6 months for recovery
Someone’s always an expert. Lol
link to sandiegouniontribune.com from Dr. Chao
I was told that I needed this type of surgery at the age of 42 or I’d be in a wheelchair permanently by the age of 50! I didn’t get it
and I’m still upright
and mobile ! By the Grace of God!
At the of 57 !
All depends on the location of the injury and the extent of any damage. Doctors were doing their due diligence by explaining what could happen to you if you elected not to have the surgery. Glad to hear they were wrong. If they would have downplayed your injury and said not that big of deal and you did, god forbid, end up in that wheel chair, you could have had a pretty good malpractice case but stuck in a wheel chair.
Thank You! I appreciate it!
James Harrison is, by far, one of the Steelers’ most intense players. Luckily, he has been healthy enough to continue playing at 40. I just hope Ryan can make it back. So much talent…
Let’s hope
and pray Ryan is ok