Announcement: News and information 570 AM, 96.3 FM HD2. KLIF. 76 in Dallas.
Speaker 2: KLIF news time. It’s 6:18. A broken bone in Tony Romo’s back could sideline the starting quarterback for more than two months. Dr. John Michels is not only a spine and pain doctor here in Dallas, but he used to play with the NFL as well until an injury sidelined him and he joins us now live. Good morning, Dr. Michels.
Dr. Michels: Good morning. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: I guess you have a lot of first hand knowledge about being injured in the NFL. What ran through your mind when you heard about Tony Romo’s latest injury?
Dr. Michels: You know, when I watched it the other night and saw him get compressed forward. When Cliff Avril hit him from behind and landed right on top of him as he began to slide, that compression type motion is what our spine doesn’t tolerate very well. When I saw Tony go down and clinch his back, I thought he was in trouble. Then listening to him after the game, hearing him use key words like the crunching sensation that he had. He talked about some burning, some weakness, a feeling like a stinger and those are all key words when I’m evaluating patients that make me feel like this could have been a more serious injury than they were letting on right after the game.
Speaker 4: I’m sure you saw the replays, the slow-mo, the stop action and all that stuff, and he was in kind of an odd position because he was trying to get to the ground to end the play when the Seattle player hit him. It looked like he had one leg kind of bent behind him and the other one was a little out front. Was it that odd … you think it was that odd position he was in that caused the trouble?
Dr. Michels: No. It was really because he started the slide, but how Cliff Avril came over the top of him and bent him over at the waist, it was that bending over at the waist that was the concerning motion because again, our spine can flex backwards pretty well. You watch the gymnasts in the Olympics do these back hand springs and back flips, but when you start to compress forward, especially with the force of a large man on your back, our spines don’t handle that compressive injury very well.
Speaker 2: So I guess this is L1 portion of the spine. Where is that and how long will it take for it to heal?
Dr. Michels: We have five lumbar vertebrae. Those are the lower bones in your spine just below your rib cage. So L1 is that very first lumbar vertebrae right below your ribs. That’s what got the compression fracture to it. So this is a different injury than he sustained in 2014 where he broke the transverse process bones in his back. Those are two accessory bones in his back. This is actually the main vertebral body that goes right in front of the spinal cord.
Dr. Michels: This is going to take some time to heal. This is a six to ten week injury to heal. The reason this is a little more concerning than those accessory bones is that if there’s any instability in this fracture or if it progresses, it can slide backwards and into the spinal canal and it can cause permanent nerve damage.
Speaker 4: Wow. That’s one of the things I had heard and was about to ask you. We’re talking with Dr. John Michels. He’s a spine physician, interventional spine and pain in Dallas and a former first round draft choice, a Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers. So, you know this from all angles and yeah, you just answered the question I was about to ask. I did hear somebody say that they have to really be careful with this because it could lead to something really serious, such as even paralysis.
Dr. Michels: If they do not let this injury heal and he took a more severe hit that actually caused a complete fracture to this vertebral body, it could be really serious. However, if they give it time to heal, Tony Romo should be back without any adverse consequences by mid season and should be able to see a good second half stint out of him for the playoff run.
Speaker 2: Is there any chance that he would need surgery to repair this?
Dr. Michels: The only time that we will see any kind of intervention with this is if that compression fracture is greater than 50%. So that vertebral body has a certain height to it. And when it gets compressed, it almost gets smushed down. Now, what we suspect, although we don’t know; the Cowboys camp is being pretty tight lipped right now is that this is a pretty minor fracture of that bone. Tony wasn’t even going to get imaging after the game and it wasn’t until he woke up the next morning feeling stiff that they decided to get this precautionary MRI which showed the fracture.
Dr. Michels: So we suspect that this is not going to be a surgical case for Tony. This is just going to be something that needs to take some time to heal and then Tony’s going to have to recover, get back into football shape and get ready to play the second half of the season.
Speaker 4: He has been injured so often in the last few years, going back to last year when he broke that collar bone twice. The previous year he had back surgery. The previous year he did an injury to the back and people are talking about him now like he’s a China doll or something and saying, “Well look, he’s 36 years old. He’s absolutely fragile. He might as well retire.”
Speaker 4: You’re a former NFL player as well as a doctor, so what’s your view on his future?
Dr. Michels: This has nothing to do with being fragile. Tony has had some freak injuries that have happened. They’ve just been the perfect storm. The way that he got landed on last year on his shoulder twice leading to the collar bone fracture, that’s going to happen to any quarterback in the NFL if they get hit exactly that way. This fracture that he suffered this past week is the same thing. Anybody who gets put in that compromised position has a player land on their back and bent forward, they’re going to suffer a fracture. And in fact, it’s probably because Tony has had some back issues in the past and he has focused so much on his core strength that this injury wasn’t far worse than it could have been.
Dr. Michels: I think Tony is doing all the work that he needs to to prepare to be a starting quarterback in this league. We’ve seen that he’s very effective in the preseason when he’s healthy. There’s no reason to suspect that Tony is not going to be a great quarterback in this league for years to come. I think he’s got a lot of football left to play. I think Tony is still hungry and has a lot he feels he needs to prove in the NFL. This is not the last we’ve seen of Tony Romo.
Announcement: What are the chances he’ll go back out there again and get sacked again and it breaks again?
Dr. Michels: I think the chances are just as good as any other starting quarterback in the league. This is a physical game. The NFL’s dangerous. These are big, fast, strong men who are chasing these quarterbacks down. If they get hit just right, any of them can get hurt. So it doesn’t mean that Tony Romo is fragile. He just happens to be a quarterback in a game where it is physical and tough and injuries happen.
Speaker 4: All right. Final question because I know you played with the Packers, but as a former player and a football fan I’m sure that you’ve had an opportunity to watch Dak Prescott. What do you think?
Dr. Michels: He has been spectacular in the preseason. However, he is a rookie quarterback in the National Football League and the preseason is not the regular season. Everything speeds up. It gets faster, it gets more physical once you get into the real deal of the regular season. While he has been spectacular, we hope he can maintain that going into the season, but teams are going to have a chance to game plan him. They’re going to strategize on how to throw him off his game.
Dr. Michels: I would expect that he’s going to show some of those struggles that rookie quarterbacks typically show in their first year. That being said, he’s a great athlete. He’s preparing hard. He said that he has prepared for every game as if he was going to be the starter and I think the Cowboys are in good hands moving forward.
Announcement: All right. Dr. Michels thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate your insight.
Dr. Michels: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Dr. John Michels who is with the Interventional Spine and Pain in Dallas, spine and pain doctor and former NFL player.
