Explaining Treylon Burks' knee injury, and what the Tennessee Titans will do without him
EAGAN, Minn. — LCL injuries are fairly common. Injuries to just the LCL aren't.
Tennessee Titans receiver Treylon Burks left practice on a cart Wednesday with a left leg injury. Titans coach Mike Vrabel said there was "no structural damage" to Burks' knee and he doesn't expect the second-year pass catcher to be out for very long. NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport reported that Burks sprained the lateral collateral ligament.
The LCL is one of four primary ligaments that hold the knee together, along with the ACL (anterior), MCL (medial) and PCL (posterior). As Dr. Clint Soppe — an orthopedic surgeon at the Cedars-Sinai Institute in Los Angeles and an orthopedic consultant for the L.A. Galaxy of Major League Soccer — explains it, the LCL and MCL function to stabilize the knee so it doesn't open like a book when people try to move side to side. The MCL helps stabilize inward motion and is a much more common football injury, especially among offensive linemen. The LCL stabilizes the knee as it rotates or cuts outward.
"An isolated LCL strain or tear is actually very rare," he said. "Usually the LCL is injured along with another ligament injury in the knee. Either the ACL or the PCL typically. So when I’m reading about this injury, it’s actually pretty rare for this injury to happen just in isolation."
Soppe said he has only ever operated on one isolated LCL injury in his nearly 20 years in sports medicine — not that an injury such as Burks' would require surgery. Soppe said the LCL is small, usually 6 to 8 millimeters in width, so there are almost never any partial tears. The ligament either tears through or sprains, which is medical talk for the fibers of the ligament being stretched beyond their normal length.
When there isn't any structural damage, as in Burks' case, rest and rehab are the only courses of action. Soppe said the first order of business in knee sprains is to control and decrease the swelling. After that comes checking pain tolerance, increasing range of motion and strengthening. All told, processes like these usually take four to six weeks, but how fast a patient can heal depends on the severity of the injury.
"The LCL is very important for stability of the knee, especially a player who plays like a receiver," he said. "When they’re cutting, if they’re especially cutting to the outside, that’s when that ligament gets very tight. So it’s very important for an athlete like Treylon who’s high-speed and making a lot of athletic cuts and maneuvers."
So . . . what's 4-6 weeks?
If Burks ends up on the standard four- to six-week timeline Soppe described, that slots him ready to return some time between Week 2 and Week 4 of the regular season. Obviously the best-case scenario for the Titans is for Burks to be ready for Week 1, but if that's not possible, the Titans have limited but sensible options to replace him.
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Veteran DeAndre Hopkins will be the Titans' primary outside target, with second-year slot option Kyle Philips expected to get most of the looks on the inside. With Burks out, the Titans have three other bigger-bodied receivers with at least some NFL experience who could handle outside responsibilities: Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Chris Moore and Racey McMath. Seventh-round pick Colton Dowell is the other big-bodied receiving option, but he was absent from the most recent practice.
"I don’t think there’s no pressure at all," McMath said when asked if there's increased pressure on him, Moore and Westbrook-Ikhine with Burks injured. "All of us want to be that guy and all of us want to make plays. So I don’t really think there’s no pressure on us."
The main difference between Burks and the trio of players behind him is stoutness. Burks (6-foot-2, 225 pounds) is the heaviest of the four and the most difficult for defenders to tackle in the open field or out-muscle on jump balls. McMath (6-3, 217) is the closest to Burks in profile, but in two NFL seasons he has caught only four passes.
Replacing Burks doesn't have to be a one-for-one trade. The Titans also have options in the forms of smaller receivers (Philips, Reggie Roberson, Kearis Jackson, Tre'Shaun Harrison), versatile tight ends (Chig Okonkwo, Josh Whyle) and rookie running back Tyjae Spears, an athletic threat out of the backfield.
Before the Titans signed Hopkins, their receiving corps was often described as the worst in the NFL. Losing Burks for any period of time puts the group right back where it started. McMath admitted he often heard the negative talk directed at him and his teammates in the receiver room, but it's their job to block as much out as they can in favor of focusing on the goal receivers coach Rob Moore has for them.
"Shoot, Coach told us to go out there and make plays," McMath said. "That’s really the message every day. Go out there, play our style of football, be physical, snatch the ball and make plays."
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @nicksuss.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Titans: Treylon Burks' knee injury explained
