THE JETS want us to believe everything will be all right with Chad Pennington’s right shoulder, using an optimistic Wizard of Oz timetable: All in good time, my pretty. All in good time.
Pennington himself would like us to believe that he’s far more concerned with his legs. Arm strength? Nonsense! Monday he declared that he’s developed poor footwork habits the past few years.
“It’s just going to take some time [to get rid of them],” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
On one hand, you can understand these sad delusions. The Jets’ immediate and long-term future is permanently attached to Pennington’s $64 million shoulder. And Pennington’s career is now certain to be defined by how well that shoulder is going to heal from rotator-cuff surgery.
So far, the prognosis for both is decidedly mixed. So the Jets and their quarterback borrow from the jukebox and ask: Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?
On the other hand, everyone else is forced to ponder an even more ominous question: Is this the beginning of Pennington’s recovery, or is it the end? Are we at the ground floor of his physical comeback, or the attic? When it comes to rotator cuff injuries, history is clear only about this: There is absolutely no way to know.
Bob Griese’s career ended because of a bad rotator cuff. So did Greg Cook’s. You know Griese, because before his shoulder rebelled on him he won two Super Bowls with the Dolphins. You’re less familiar with Cook because after winning the AFL passing title as a rookie in 1969, he damaged his cuff and only threw three more passes the rest of his career.
Jim McMahon was on the fast-track to the Hall of Fame before hurting his rotator cuff; he won exactly one more playoff game after. Gary Danielson, now an excellent broadcaster, was a fine quarterback before his rotator cuff bit him in 1986.
“A rotator cuff injury to a throwing athlete is like cancer,” Danielson said a few years later.
The names of the quarterbacks who have suffered problems with a rotator cuff is long and it’s less than distinguished: Tim Couch, Kelly Holcomb, Aaron Brooks, Jim Miller. None of them was the player Pennington was before his injury. But that’s the key word: before. Even Dr. James Andrews, who has performed more rotator-cuff surgeries than anyone – including Pennington’s – acknowledges this.
“If you throw a baseball long enough, sooner or later you’re probably going to wind up in somebody’s operating room,” he told the Lexington Herald-Leader last year. “And maybe more than once.”
The rotator cuff is a group of tendons connecting the four muscles of the upper shoulder. A healthy cuff allows the muscles to lift and rotate the arm with full range of motion. Two professions demand such dexterity: throwing a football and pitching a baseball.
Pitchers’ recoveries are just as unpredictable as quarterbacks. Rotator cuff injuries ended the careers of Alex Fernandez and Mark Fidrych and hurried the end of Ron Guidry’s. In the eight seasons before his rotator cuff surgery on Sept. 7, 1991, Dwight Gooden’s record was 132-53; in his eight seasons after, he was 62-59, a reminder that cocaine wasn’t the lone thief of Gooden’s Hall of Fame plaque.
That said, Trevor Hoffman blossomed into one of the game’s great closers virtually entirely after having cuff problems in 1994. And Orel Hershiser won 105 games after tearing his cuff, five more than he did before the injury.
And the bad news isn’t just in Pennington’s ballyhooed velocity, as his backup, Jay Fiedler, can attest. Fiedler hurt the rotator cuff in his left (non-throwing) shoulder in 2001, but as he said late in that season, “The biggest limitation is with handoffs.”
This suddenly makes you wonder about all of those fumbles the quarterback has collected, too.
The point, of course, is this: We can’t be sure Pennington is as bad as he’s looked thus far. But the Jets can’t be sure he isn’t that bad, either. The Jets might like to close their eyes and wish all of this away. But for those of us whose eyes remain wide open, the matter isn’t resolved quite so easily.
Bumpy road back
A handful of notable NFL quarterbacks have come back, or tried to come back, from rotator cuff surgery similar to that of Jets QB Chad Pennington. Here’s a look at how they fared:
Player Team When Result
Greg Cook Bengals 1970 After winning the AFL passing title as a rookie, Cook attempted only three more passes (in 1973) for the remainder of his career.
Gary Danielson Browns 1986 Former Lions starter played in only eight games with Browns in next two years.Jim McMahon Bears Dec. 1986 After leading Bears to Super Bowl title, won only one more playoff game after surgery.
Jim Miller Bears Jan. 2003 Hasn’t started since.
Aaron Brooks Saints Jan. 2004 Performance dipped while playing with injury in final four games of 2003. Looks fully recovered, but hasn’t yet posted stats as impressive as his 2002 and 2003 seasons.
Kelly Holcomb Browns Feb. 2004 After taking over starting job in 2003, started only two games in 2004, backing up Jeff Garcia. Was signed by Bills in offseason to back up J.P. Losman.Tim Couch Packers Jan. 2005 Former Browns No. 1 pick is still a free agent two weeks into season. Failed in attempt to make Giants roster.