Brock Purdy to postpone surgery due to ongoing inflammation in his elbow

NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero provided an update on Brock Purdy, who was slated to have surgery this week. Purdy visited Dr. Keith Meister, who recommended that Purdy postponed his surgery due to ongoing inflammation in his elbow.

Both sides plan to reconvene in early March. Per Pelissero, “all signs continue to point to a UCL repair that would have Purdy ready for the 2023 season.”

Dr. Jeff Mueller, who we’ve referenced before and is a physical therapy doctor, had this to say about Purdy:

Falls in line with what we knew:

It’s a bad UCL tear that is still too inflamed to perform surgery 3.5 weeks post-injury. Postponing to roughly 4.5-5 weeks. Severity of the injury makes sense given how many consultations Purdy received to decide between UCL Repair vs Tommy John/recon.

Not good or bad news, just affirms what we knew of a bad tear. They’re optimistic of a Repair, but in reality they won’t know until they get in there and perform the surgery to see if the ligament is repairable.

The good news is: original surgery date of 2/22 put Purdy at 6 months 19 days to Week 1.

Postponing to early March puts him at ~4.5-5 weeks post-injury, and still 6.0+ months from DOS to Week 1 (if he gets the repair, not TJ).

This should not be viewed as “good news” towards a Repair, despite other reports.

As Dr. Mueller notes above, Purdy could technically still be ready for the season, but that’s if he doesn’t get Tommy John surgery. Typically, you don’t delay a repair.

We’ll provide updates as more details come in. I’m setting up a time to speak with Dr. Jeffrey Dugas from Andrews Sports Medicine. He’s the doctor who performed a UCL repair on Nick Mullens and said he could speak to the surgeries effectiveness and potential recovery timelines.