Six degrees of misdiagnosis
Published 6:00 pm Friday, August 18, 2017
The big news out of Saints camp in New Orleans this week is that two team doctors got cut.
Man bites dog stuff.
Trending
Technically, doctors normally do the literal cutting, not find themselves on the figurative end of a cut. So in effect it’s safe to say that the two team doctors were fired by the Saints.
They didn’t go on waivers, available for another team to pick up.
Orthopedic surgeons Deryk Jones and Misty Suri apparently get to keep their day jobs with the famed Ochsner Health System, which, awkwardly enough, is a major corporate sponsor of the Saints.
But the final straw with the Saints was the misdiagnosis of key cornerback Delvin Breaux, who’s at least a week behind recovery schedule because his fractured leg was originally said to be just a contusion.
You know, rub a little dirt on it and get back out there.
But head coach Sean Payton, who was admittedly feeling chagrined that he’d been pushing Breaux to do just that, said it was not the first injury-related misstep and the organization needed to make a change.
Trending
In fact, for this week’s practices in Los Angeles against the Chargers in advance of Sunday’s preseason game, they will even borrow the Chargers’ doctors.
That could put a strain on the Hippocratic Oath.
Good thing it’s a meaningless preseason game or the Saints might show up looking like survivors from a zombie apocalypse.
Still, the Saints can’t complain too much. When it comes to playing doctor, the Who Dats are still way ahead of the game.
They benefited from maybe the biggest sports medical misdiagnosis (blunder) of all time.
All it did was change the NFL and the college game, with the aftershocks still being felt, mostly in Louisiana.
Not sure if anybody got fired over that one.
But remember that scene from the movie “Coming to America” when the Duke brothers from Eddie Murphy’s “Trading Places” adventure were cameo-spotted living in a dumpster?
I’m guessing that’s what happened to the Miami Dolphins’ medical team that flunked Drew Brees when he took his physical with them in the spring of 2006.
By all accounts Brees, who was just coming into his own, was ready to sign as a free agent with Miami.
But he’d been injured in the final game of 2005 playing for the Chargers, which required arthroscopic surgery on a torn labrum in his right shoulder. He also had a partially torn rotator cuff.
But he had a note from his doctor, and not just any ol’ doctor. It was famed orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews, the go-to scalpel for any athlete.
The Dolphins’ head coach, genius named Nick Saban, was in love with Brees.
But the doctors wouldn’t pass muster on him following a 6-hour physical.
So Brees quickly signed with the Saints, the only other team actively pursuing him.
The Saints even got him relatively cheap. The shoulder seems to be holding up fine. It looks like he may play until he’s 60.
The Dolphins instead signed Daunte Culpepper, who hasn’t really been heard from since.
Saban went 7-9 the next season in Miami, quit pro football, and he, too, hasn’t really been heard from …
Well, OK, that’s not really true.
And that’s what makes it such a landmark medical blunder.
Never mind that, without Brees, it’s safe to say the Saints never get close to a Super Bowl, let alone win one.
It’s not too much of a stretch to wonder if the Saints would still even be in New Orleans. Remember, this was the aftermath of Katrina, when owner Tom Benson seemed determined to move them, probably to San Antonio.
Maybe then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue still blocks those shenanigans. But if Brees doesn’t provide the sudden spark that revitalized the team and the fan base, who’s to say? Maybe it would have been hopeless after all.
But that’s not the half of it.
Saban, you’ll recall, did land on his feet, squarely in Alabama.
In retrospect, he has said he didn’t really care for the pro game. But if he had Brees as his quarterback, he probably could have learned to appreciate it a whole lot more.
He even said on an episode of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” a couple a years ago that “If we had (signed) Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.”
So let’s assume he would have stayed.
We don’t know who would have ended up with the Alabama job, but we know it wouldn’t have been Saban. So Alabama wouldn’t be the same Alabama as Saban has made it.
So that failed physical 850 miles from Baton Rouge cost LSU at least one national championship (the 2011 head-to-head matchup) and probably more.
Never mind the times that Saban’s Bama has been the big roadblock in LSU’s path. Think of the top-flight Louisiana recruits (Landon Collins, Cam Robinson, just to name two) who might well have been Tigers if not for not for one failed physical.
Les Miles is probably still at LSU, even with an archaic offense.
True, it’s lot of what-ifs.
But it’s not so farfetched.
