Another gruesome ankle injury: Skattebo out for the season

As much as ankle fracture-dislocations are considered a relatively rare injury, we’ve now seen 49ers LB Fred Warner and this week Giants’ RB Cam Skattebo suffer from these gruesome injuries this season. This is season ending for Skattebo, which is a big hit to the Giant’s offence. After a rough week one outing, Skattebo started making his mark on the league with a snap percentage greater than 50% in every game since. His best performance was a 3 touchdown outing against the Eagles in week 6, so there were high hopes for his performance coming into the second meeting of the season between the divisional rivals. With just over 8 minutes left in the first half of New York’s game against Philadelphia, Skattebo went to catch a pass and landed on his right leg with the defender landing on him. The motion of planting the foot, rotating the limb and the force from the defender landing on him caused a fracture-dislocation. Fracture-dislocations involve the talus bone that sits in the center of the ankle to be pushed out of its position in the arch formed by the far ends of the long lower leg bones. Because of the high level of force needed to push the talus out of position, there are usually fractures to the ends of the tibia and/or fibula (long bones of the lower leg) and possibly to the talus itself. Ankle fracture-dislocation injuries cause so much damage that surgery is needed to re-stabilize the joint. These procedures involve plates and screws for the fractures and may include some repair or reconstruction of the soft tissue structures that help stabilize the ankle. Return from ankle fractures treated with surgery is a long process but doable. Athletes typically take between 4-9 months to rehab, depending on the extent of the damage. Injury tracking data from the NFL shows that approximately 71% make a full return to play, and higher player value pre-injury was associated with higher likelihood of return. Once back on the field, our analytics show that snap percentage is within 10% of pre-injury. Hopefully things play out well for Skattebo’s recovery and we see him running through defenses again next year.