Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QRptNY6j_s
The jogan Experience so you are how many months out since your injury almost five yeah my wife was just here and we were talking about how we went to see your game we set it up we're going to go see Aaron play he's going to be playing the Cowboys in Dallas let's go we got all pumped up and and four plays later yeah yeah how is it now it feels good it feels good I can do everything except uh Sprint at a top speed so um the cool thing is I the I really attacked the reab the first few months and kind of wanted to go as hard as I could for two months to see where I was at and also see where the team was at cuz my goal was to come back um nobody has come back uh really quick from that injury most of the time when it happens especially during season there's no need uh to push a rehab because it happened the first week of the season I said you know let's push this as hard as I can and see if I can come back in December at some point so I kind of my mind had circled Christmas Eve which would have been 14 weeks post uh surgery and yeah I worked really really hard I had a great surgeon uh who did uh you know a newer process where they kind of uh attach uh anchor the uh uh the sutures through the tendon back into your heel so it allows you to get on your feet quicker um I did a lot of you know uh other things to U speed up the reab iated hyper barck chamber uh work with the Bri Brigham at ways to well you know I know you're very good friends with and saw him in the podcast here and he's amazing um he did some stem cells did uh uh you know full-time rehab uh up to eight hours a day with u you know an incredible spot in LA and also at home doing extra stuff uh my diet was Rock Solid um a lot of bone broth um to increase the collagen levels to increase healing and so I felt you know I felt really really good I made it back on the practice field um at 11 weeks weeks um the way the NFL works with the IR you can uh have a 3-we window before they got to make a decision so they designate you to return you have three weeks before you get activated so I was hoping we'd win those three games I could come back now I couldn't Sprint and still can't at top speed but I felt like there's been times in my career where I played in a small circle it
could have been able to be effective U that didn't happen uh and so they uh didn't they activate me to the roster I just got to practice um but I didn't get to play but uh I feel good you know um it it was I had a lot of things working against me my age being the biggest one but uh I learned a lot about a lot more about health which I'm sure people would love to hear about yeah um I mean if you follow like a wayte to well protocol you can pretty radically speed up recovery for injuries you know um and what's interesting is that there's stuff that you can do that you didn't do because it's not allowed which is you know very admirable on your part but I would I would have [ __ ] done it I I would have done everything like let's go I would have gone the full Conor McGregor route but um when you do how do they determine whether or not you are fully here do they do an MRI and check the tissue and yeah we were doing the ultrasounds actually for a while just to see what type of blood flow we were getting to the area um we didn't actually do another MRI if I had been uh activated with the intent to play I think just for safety for everybody we probably would have done another MRI just to see the Integrity structural Integrity of the tendon um but really it was about how I felt you know and I was able to to do all the quarterback stuff um move in the pocket um throw uh step into my foot I could actually you know jog to slightly faster than a jog to move and throw um all things I kind of showed in practice the last few weeks this what happens over that if you speed it up a little do you feel pain do you feel I I don't have the explosion I don't have the ability to kind of um get up on my toe the the biggest uh hurdle was just single leg calf strength like being able to from a standing position shift my weight onto the single leg and do a heel race um that to that's how you know you're ready to run because you run on your athletes play on their toes you know so I need to be able to to do that now I could get around that by subtle movements in the pocket but there was multiple times throughout my career had lower leg injuries in 14 and 18 especially where I was able to play in a small circle in 14 I ripped my calf up pretty bad and was able to kind of play in the shotgun and the pistol um for a
stretch of time and be effective in 18 I banged my knee up on the uh second Drive of the game uh you tore my MCL had a um uh you know fracture on the lateral side and was able to play uh for a while uh in mostly in the shotgun until that healed up but so I knew I could do it I wanted to show I could play Under Center which I did uh in practice but um you know we just were out of it so so I didn't come back well it seems like it's the smartest move at your age to make sure it's 100% like like I've seen a lot of athletes come back particularly from ACL injuries with Fighters they come back too soon and Pops again yeah I I I totally agree with that on on many levels but then there's the competitor report where I see that uh that window closing and um there's not many guys who've been who've played as long as I have there's a few obviously Tom did it for a long time but you know there's kind of an age where father time is is winning and I know that you know I'm I'm on the last couple holes of my career so I didn't want to miss an entire season are you 36 now I'm 40 40 thank you though you look 36