Looks like the Green Bay Packers may not have get any Love for the next several NFL games. Jordan Love, the 25-year-old starting quarterback for the Packers, suffered a left knee injury, which left Packers fans quite worried. That happened during closing seconds of the Packers’ 34-29 opening game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. A subsequent MRI revealed something between a Grade 1 and Grade 2 medial collateral ligament sprain, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Media. That means that Love will probably return somewhere between three to six weeks.
While no one will say, “Yay, I’ve got an MCL sprain,” it’s definitely better news for Packers fans than a worse knee injury such as an anterior cruciate ligament tear. A sprain is essentially medical-ese for a tear of a ligament. A ligament is a band of fibrous tissue that connects one bone to another in a joint and helps keep that joint from going all over the place. So, if you tear a ligament badly enough, your joint may go a-rocking, so to speak.
Each of your knees has four ligaments running from your femur to your tibia and fibula: an MCL, an ACL, a posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) and a lateral collateral ligament (LCL). The “medial” is a big clue as to where the MCL runs. It runs along the medial side of your knee, which is the inside of your knee or the side that you can see when you put your head between your knees.
When it comes to grading MCL sprains, less is certainly more. The lower the grade, the less the damage. Here’s the grading system:
- Grade 1 MCL tear (mild): These tears that involve less than 10% of the fibers in the ligament may lead to some tenderness and mild pain. However, the knee remains quite stable. Such injuries typically can heal on their own without surgery. You basically need to rest for one to three weeks.
- Grade 2 MCL tear (moderate): These involve more fibers in the ligament and usually result in more pain and tenderness as well as some looseness that can be elicited when you push your knee with your hand. Rest ain’t gonna be enough. Typically, you’ll have to undergo physical therapy and perhaps even wear a knee brace to keep the knee stable so that the ligament can heal. The recovery time tends to last four to six weeks. If there is concomitant damage to other parts of the knee, further reducing the stability of the knee, surgery may be necessary, which would stretch out the timeline.
- Grade 3 MCL tear (severe): This is game over when it comes to the MCL. The MCL is completely torn, potentially resulting in a loose and very unstable knee. Here you are looking at a recovery time of more than six weeks. Even longer if knee instability deems surgery necessary.
As you can see, something between a Grade 1 and Grade 2 sprain would place Love’s recovery time in the three to six week range, which is consistent with what Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network tweeted or X’d or whatever it’s called these days:
Of course, the type of treatment needed depends on not only how stable the knee is but also how heavily the knee will be used. If your biggest use of your knee will be to do “The Dougie” on the dance floor, then maybe, just maybe, you can hold off on doing so while the ligament heals and spare other people. In Love’s case, stability in his knee will be pretty darn necessary.
Fortunately, though, something between a Grade 1 and Grade 2 sprain probably means that Love’s knee is still fairly stable. That’s good news for the stability of the Packers offense this season. After all, Love is expected to be their new franchise quarterback. And the Packers want all the Love that they can get.
