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Carimi on tap for another knee surgery


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Gabe Carimi will soon undergo surgery to repair his right knee and the Bears' first-round draft pick is expected to need about four months to rehabilitate.

 

Carimi, who was injured during the second quarter of the Week 2 game in New Orleans, had arthroscopic surgery on the knee Nov. 11 and the decision has been made for him to have a more involved procedure that should strengthen and tighten his knee, according to an NFL source.

 

It's expected the right tackle will be ready for full participation well in advance of training camp even though it took three months to reach the decision to have the surgery. Carimi suffered a subluxation of the knee — essentially a dislocation — similar to an injury he suffered during a career as a four-year starter at Wisconsin.

 

Scouts for two NFL teams told the Tribune they had a yellow medical grade on Carimi entering the draft. Before the Dec. 11 game in Denver, Bears general manager Jerry Angelo acknowledged the Bears had a similar grade on the player they selected with the 29th overall pick.

 

The scouts for the other teams were clear the medical grade would not have prevented them from drafting Carimi, but that it was an assessment he might require "maintenance" during an NFL career after a decorated run with the Badgers that was capped by him winning the 2010 Outland Trophy as the nation's top lineman.

 

"We had a concern when he came out," Angelo said. "He dislocated his knee (in college). And we had a medical grade. (It) was a concern, but he played with it. And we've had guys do it and play with it, no more so than a guy gets an ACL, gets his knee repaired and you draft him. As long as he passes your medical filter, you're fine. Most of these guys have something. He had something. He played a ton.

 

"Nobody flunked him (medically). Sometimes, you get a knee and you say, 'Well, there's a lot of gray' and then you say, 'We don't want to get even close to that.' It wasn't that. His knee was structurally sound, everything was fine."

 

The Bears used the 14th pick in the 2008 draft on offensive lineman Chris Williams, who had a documented disk issue in his back that led some teams to remove him from their draft boards. Williams had surgery during training camp of his rookie season and has been fine since.

 

Carimi was selected 15 picks later than Williams, and nearly everyone was in agreement he was the best available offensive tackle at the time. The Bears tried to trade up three slots with the Ravens to ensure they got Carimi.

 

"In this case, his medical wouldn't have stopped us from taking him higher," Angelo said.

 

One veteran scout said a yellow medical grade is an indicator of something to watch for but primarily a tiebreaker when it comes to the draft process. If a player had poor character and a yellow grade, that might eliminate him from consideration. Carimi came with high marks and offensive line coach Mike Tice said he was the team's best lineman at the time of the injury.

 

"Everything is good," Angelo said.

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My question would be why didn't they do the surgery when they put him on IR about 8 weeks ago?

 

Peace :dabears

 

If I had to guess, they may have been waiting to see if the surgery he DID have would be sufficient for him to return before the season was over. Or that it would 'do the trick'. Now that the season is winding down they probably have come to realize it (surgery) wasn't enough and decided to go for the long term solution.

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This is one of the reasons I don't trust Jerry drafting offensive lineman. Our last three 1st round OL picks have all had a hard time staying on the field.

 

That sounds a lot like a JA problem and not a "drafting OL"-problem. Nonetheless, I hope even a blind squirrel finds a nut this year, and the when the others come back healthy it's a potential juggernaut OL.

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FWIW- Gabe Carimi's father is a doctor in the Madison, WI area....

 

Madison is known for having some of the best doctors in the word and if he is in their hands at this point- that is a very very good sign.

 

Lets not forget our organization screwed the pooch on Colombo's injury...glad Gabe went outside and got a 2nd opinion on this one. After all, it's his leg.

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My question would be why didn't they do the surgery when they put him on IR about 8 weeks ago?

 

Peace :dabears

 

 

my question is...why do we draft players from college with a injury history only to have them contiue to be injured and spend half the time getting surgery as pros. Certainly there are players out there that are not injury prone that can stay on the field and produce

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my question is...why do we draft players from college with a injury history only to have them contiue to be injured and spend half the time getting surgery as pros. Certainly there are players out there that are not injury prone that can stay on the field and produce

I'm going to bet you that it's because Angelo looks more at what they could do than what their injury history is. A guy like Carimi might well not have fallen to the late 20's in the draft if he never had an injury. A guy like Williams might well have been a top 10 pick had teams not graded him lower because of injury risk. Angelo is trying to find guys who will outplay their draft spots, and that involves going for the guy who dropped because of the injury risk.

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How many more times are we going to do this realizing it's not really working?

 

I'm going to bet you that it's because Angelo looks more at what they could do than what their injury history is. A guy like Carimi might well not have fallen to the late 20's in the draft if he never had an injury. A guy like Williams might well have been a top 10 pick had teams not graded him lower because of injury risk. Angelo is trying to find guys who will outplay their draft spots, and that involves going for the guy who dropped because of the injury risk.

 

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