There are reports today that Eagles offensive lineman Winston Justice will undergo surgery to treat a bone chip in his left knee. He did miss two games this past season with a knee injury and during offseason workouts has still been experiencing pain. So the team and Justice decided to that he would fly to Alabama to see Dr. James Andrews.
The Eagles are calling the procedure a routine “clean out” which will require arthroscopic surgery, which typically only sidelines a player for a few weeks. If that’s all this is, Justice’s 2011 season will be unaffected.
However, New Journal reporter Geoff Mosher has cited a source who claims that Justice could require microfracture surgery, which would likely cost him next season. However, Mosher’s source also admits that Justice could simply require arthroscopic surgery, which would mean a 3-4 week recovery time. Dr. Andrews won’t know until he’s in there. So just to recap, the source says that Justice could be done for good or be fine in three weeks.
In some ways this news about Justice needing knee surgery is welcome… After a very solid 2009 campaign, he really struggled as the season wore on last year. We know he did some time with this injury and the need for surgery would certainly suggest that it was a worse than anyone let on. So if Justices’ struggles were due more to injury than just regression… that does bode well for the right side of our line.
Either way, the Eagles have already been taking a look at every top OT in the draft. In all likelihood they’re looking at them to play RG, but it would certainly be good to depth in case Justice’s injury is the worst case scenario.