On Wednesday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy will undergo surgery to repair the tear of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow. Texas Rangers team physician Dr. Keith Meister will perform the procedure in Arlington.
Update: Meister has recommended that the surgery be postponed.
There are two possibilities for how the surgery will be performed. The hope is that Dr. Meister will repair the ligament with an internal brace. That would mean a recovery time of about six months, forcing the quarterback to miss most of the offseason but potentially be full-go for the start of the 2023 regular season.
The second option is a backup plan involving a hybrid procedure—a ligament reconstruction with an internal brace. That, of course, would lengthen the recovery time.
"There's this backup plan of having a hybrid surgery, which means a little bit of the graft, and then an internal brace, which can be anywhere from seven to nine months," Purdy explained during the week leading to Super Bowl 57.
That timeline delays the quarterback's return to as early as late September or as late as late November. Whether or not the backup plan is necessary will be Dr. Meister's call, and he won't know if the more extensive procedure will be needed until after the surgery begins.
"Yeah, that's Dr. Meister's call," Purdy shared. "He's done this year after year with the best of the best with MLB pitchers. So he's definitely seen this kind of thing happen, and he's going to make the best call, and not just for the heck of it. It's obviously for the best call for my career moving forward. And he knows what's best, and he's going to make the best decision for us, so it'll be good."
Obviously, the hope is for the repair rather than the reconstruction. The quarterback hopes to be ready for the regular season, and if the recovery is quicker than expected, maybe even for part of training camp.
"So we're going into it thinking the repair with the internal brace, for sure," Purdy shared. "All the surgeons have said that, and that's what we're hoping for, and get a six-month recovery in and be ready to camp."