Michael Thomas Ankle Surgery - out 3-4 months

[pwny]

1 hour ago, ET80 said:

My only counter to this - if you're a current or former "highest paid" type at your position, you need to have Dr. James Andrews on speed dial and seek his counsel at least three times a year - at the very least, as soon as the season is over.

Strictly depending on team doctors is no longer advisable, IMO. I think we've seen enough examples of team doctors putting the team over the player in consults such as this, and I don't think the Saints organization (read: Sean Payton) is exactly altruistic when it comes to player safety.

In theory, you're right. Specific to Thomas, IMO? If the narrative is he got hurt in season and continued to play, he needs to validate his condition with other doctors in addition to team physicians, simply because his body is why he's basically a nine figure player.

That’s part of why I was asking. It wouldn’t have been the first time that a team told a player to wait on getting surgery because of whatever reason and it turned around and bit then in the ***. But as @AZ_Eaglesfan noted in the reply to me, it looks like the team told him to get surgery, and whichever doctor he sought out for a second opinion told him to wait.

Seems like both sides have a reason to be frustrated. Like you said, teams are often looking out for themselves over the player, so Thomas had good reason to trust whichever doctor he sought out himself over the team’s doctor that was likely putting team over player, and the team has a right to be frustrated because it looks like they were right and he did need surgery right away, but his choice to wait and see at the advisement of another doctor is now putting his start of the heart in jeopardy.

I don’t know what the answer is, but like you said, a player shouldn’t only be listening to the team doctor, and him doing exactly that is the major part to this rift between the two sides.