Paula Poundstone did an HBO special back in 1990 aptly called Cats, Cops, and Stuff. In the special, she retells a story about her family having a Flintstones glass that she knocked off the table. The glass plummeted to the floor before shattering.
“This is why,” Paula’s mother replied in a huff, “we can’t have nice things.”
Those eight words have been circulating online about the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings have had more heartbreak in their storied franchise than perhaps any other professional sports team. Fans are circulating the saying because of the unfortunate news that their starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy fell victim to a meniscus injury that will require surgery and put the quarterback on the shelf for the remainder of the preseason, if not longer.
The Vikings announced the news on the morning of August 13, 110 days after they made McCarthy their first-round pick. Fans were optimistic about McCarthy following an impressive preseason debut in which he went 11 for 17 for 188 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception. That was before Minnesota announced that McCarthy would be missing practice Monday due to knee soreness. Then, they followed that news with an emergency press conference Tuesday announcing the news that McCarthy has a tear in his right meniscus knee that will require surgery.
So what is a meniscus tear, and what does this mean for McCarthy and the Vikings?
I wrote in-depth about meniscus woes earlier this year when Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns fell victim to a similar injury. Essentially, the meniscus is a matching set of cartilage in the knee that acts as shock absorbers when lending from a jump. Think of them as the knee’s version of airbags.
When someone is in the air and gravity is pulling them back to earth, the meniscus protects the upper part of the tibia from coming in contact with the lower part of the femur, much in the same way that an airbag in the car prevents someone from coming in contact with their steering wheel during a car crash. The difference is that the dense connective tissue that forms the meniscus does this over and over again throughout a lifetime. It cushions every step and protects every jump.
Medically speaking, the main problem with the meniscus is that it is made up of a thick connective tissue called cartilage. While cartilage has the advantages of being durable and flexible, it has a significant disadvantage in that it does not receive much blood flow. Therefore, healing cartilage is very slow, if not impossible.
Picture a shark. As most people know, sharks don’t have bones, their skeleton is made up of cartilage. That’s what allows them to be flexible in the water and maneuver without having to use as much energy due to the less dense and heavy cartilage. The disadvantage can also be seen in sharks. The reason they carry scars or have parts of their fins missing is because cartilage can not heal as well, so their bodies often just form scar tissue to heal over whatever damage might have been done.
It’s the same premise with a meniscus injury. If a regular person were to tear their meniscus often, a doctor would recommend just leaving it. That would mean wearing a knee brace and continuing living life, icing the knee, and decreasing activity to allow it to heal slowly. However, with athletes, leaving it is not an option.
A meniscus tear can be quite painful for a quarterback. During twisting and running, depending on the extent of the tear, the nerves in the knee can be compressed by the lack of padding. With some tears, people can feel a popping sensation when they extend their knee, and it can be accompanied by knee stiffness.
Considering McCarthy would be twisting and bending the knee a considerable amount during dropbacks and throws, a meniscus tear could worsen the tear or cause other damage to the knee. That means surgery is McCarthy’s main option, which can come in two forms: repair and trimming.
Repairing consists of going into the knee and fastening the Meniscus back together using sutures. That’s the more serious version of a meniscus injury because the need to repair suggests that the tear is either completely through the tissue or deep enough that trimming the tissue would cause long-lasting damage and that the knee will not be able to heal on its own. The procedure has a considerably longer recovery time due to needing the cartilage to heal completely, and until the sutures dissolve or need to be taken out. Unfortunately, due to the slow-healing nature of the meniscus, this can lead to three to four months of recovery, if not longer.
Trimming the meniscus is the less severe procedure because the tear is superficial on the meniscus. The tear does not go deep into the tissue, and the torn area can be trimmed away. While any surgery is serious and comes with risks, a meniscectomy only has a recovery time of four to six weeks to allow the incisions to heal and the meniscus to scar over where it was trimmed.
Interestingly, there hasn’t been a lot of information on the extent of McCarthy’s tear. Diagnostically speaking, the Vikings likely have a good idea of what McCarthy’s timetable will be due to the MRIs and X-rays that they have done. However, the Vikings are reporting they won’t know for sure about the extent of the tear until they are in the operating room. While this is true, it also is misleading. It suggests that the tear is likely less severe. However, Minnesota is likely hedging publicly in case something goes wrong in surgery or they find more damage when they get a better look in the operating room.
“This is why we can’t have nice things,” may be the initial reaction when fans see the news about McCarthy. Based on the severity of the tear, though, it could be just a chip on the rim of the Flintstones glass instead of the glass shattering. Regardless of the extent of the injury, McCarthy will soon be on the road to recovery. Hopefully, this will be just a small bump in the road of a long career.
