GREEN BAY — Tight end Tucker Kraft and edge rusher Micah Parsons aren’t the only Green Bay Packers in recovery mode.
While two of the team’s brightest stars have both undergone ACL reconstruction surgery following their season-ending knee injuries and their rehabilitation regimens are underway, starting right tackle Zach Tom, defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt and cornerback Nate Hobbs are also on the comeback trail.
Tom, whose season began with an oblique injury in the opener against Detroit and was star-crossed thereafter, said as players cleaned out their lockers on Monday morning that the knee injury that sidelined him for the final three regular-season games and Saturday night’s season-ending playoff loss to the Chicago Bears was a partially torn patellar tendon.
He suffered the injury at Denver on Dec. 14 — in the same game in which Parsons tore his ACL — and said Monday that he hoped that rest and a platelet-rich plasma injection (PRP) would allow him to play in the playoffs.
But it wasn’t enough, and now he is “leaning toward” having surgery to repair the tendon, which would require a six-month recovery.
“It was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in my life,” said Tom, who wound up missing five games and parts of three others — including playing just one snap in the team’s Week 3 loss at Cleveland when he reinjured his oblique on the Packers’ first offensive snap — with injuries. “Obviously you want to be out there in the playoffs because that’s when everything’s at stake. I just don’t think I was in a position where I could go out there and help the team.
“I was never really comfortable in pass protection. If somebody’s truly trying to run through my chest, I don’t think I would’ve been able to be competitive.”
Wyatt, meanwhile, suffered a fractured fibula and a torn ligament in his left ankle on Thanksgiving in Detroit and was in an orthopedic boot for locker clean-out on Monday.
He said his recovery could take up to five months and that his hope is to be ready for the start of training camp.
“This is my first year having a major injury like this,” he said. “It taught me that I really love football and I got to take advantage of every moment I get on the field because an injury or any little thing can keep you away from it. It just lets you know how much you really love it and miss it, and how much you really want to be out there with the guys playing instead of just watching on TV.”
Cornerback Nate Hobbs’ first season with the Packers was a lot like Tom’s year — one injury after another, starting in training camp with a torn meniscus in his right knee on July 31, followed by a sprained MCL in his left knee against Carolina on Nov. 2, and capped by a re-injuring of the MCL in his left knee Dec. 27 against Baltimore.
Hobbs, who joined the team on a four-year, $48 million free-agent deal, finished the season on injured reserve having played only 11 games (five starts).
“It definitely came with a lot of pain. A lot of emotional pain, physical pain, especially for me, for my team, of course. I just felt helpless looking at the game,” Hobbs said of the loss to the Bears. “If a couple of our guys were out there — if Micah was out there, if my boy Tuck was out there, if I was out there — I feel like the game would have went totally different. And that sucks.
“From a team aspect it was a hard year, but from individual aspect, for me, it was one of my toughest years, if not the toughest year I’ve had playing professional football. Absolutely.”
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