Talk about irony.
When Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Mike Patterson suffered a seizure during training camp in 2011, he missed a part of training camp but rebounded to play in 15 of the 16 games that season.
Yet now it’s been revealed that the 29-year old defensive tackle is likely to miss the entire 2012 season due to complications from offseason brain surgery, all the result of his seizure more than a year ago. It was revealed that Patterson had a brain AVM (arteriovenus malformation), which was potentially life threatening. But he was able to postpone his surgery to untangle the blood vessels in his brain until after the season. Now he’s suffering from complications from surgery, as the wound still has not healed.
Football is out of the question right now for Patterson, who did not attend training camp and has not been medically cleared to practice.
“I think that’s going to be an extended time here,” head coach Andy Reid said. “We just have to see how that goes, if he’s able to go at all this year, we’ll just have to see how that works out. We’ll take checkups in increments here, but right now, that’s going to be a while.”
You can dissect Reid’s comment pretty easily. There’s no way Patterson is going to be playing any type of football this season.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he never plays again, and if he does, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was for another team.
There’s no guarantee that Patterson would have started this year anyway, with borderline Pro Bowl talent Cullen Jenkins, last year’s defensive breakout star Derek Landri, and rookie first round draft pick Fletcher Cox all pushing for playing time. Throw in veteran Antonio Dixon and training camp sensation Cedric Thornton, and Patterson would have been heavily rotated even if he did play this season.
This article was written by Bryn Swartz, the top writer for the Philadelphia Eagles and a featured NFL columnist on Rant Sports. Bryn has written more than 1000 articles in less than two years as a member of Rant Sports. His blog, Eagles Central, was named the 2010 Ballhyped Sports Blog of the Year. To read a portfolio of Bryn’s best work, click here.
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