Getty Images

As Sunday Night Football Sports Medicine Consultant Mike Ryan recently explained on PFT Live, plenty of players have had microfracture surgery, but they choose not to advertise it, due to the stigma associated with the procedure. While the surgery and rehab have improved in recent years, one player who has had it believes the latest NFL player to get it will have a hard time recovering from it.

“He’s screwed,” Colts tackle Gosder Cherilus said of Texans linebacker Jadeveon Clowney, via Stephen Holder of the Indianapolis Star. “His game is all about explosion. That’s a problem. I’m out there dancing. I’m an offensive line[man]. That’s a different ballgame. He’s screwed. I’m just being honest.”

Cherilus also echoed Ryan’s description of the rehab process as long and grueling.

“The doctor said, ‘I’d be surprised if you ever play again'” Cherilus said. “I was like, ‘My God.’ But I gave it a try. We did rehab for nine straight months. Three to five hours in the morning and then I’d come back and do some more later. Think about that.”

Before the rehab, the player has to spend plenty of time off the leg.

“You see my leg right here?” Cherilus said. “Imagine putting this on crutches for 10 weeks. You lose everything. The whole leg was dumb. I couldn’t even walk. We had to teach the leg to do everything all over again: Taking off, cutting, everything.”

So Clowney is screwed in two ways. He’ll have to work hard to get the leg back to where it was. And then he’ll have to subject the knee to the explosion that those leg muscles will create.