talks in the next 45 minutes. My goal is to give you at least four minutes back of your time by the end of it. We're going to dive in a little bit to return to play tips. Nothing to disclose. Interesting why we're here, just to talk about return to play. Interestingly, when you go on Google and you put in return to play, you get over 700,000 hits, just on return to play alone. That's not injuries. That's not injury rehab. Literally, just type in return to play, you get 700,000 hits from Kyler Murray to LeBron James to John Morant, onward and onward you get. So let's simplify it and talk about 10 things, 10 things over my 26 years that I feel are valuable to any practitioner in a room as you think about return to play. Tip number one, this is for Sean Gibson, head athletic trainer with the New Orleans Saints in the back of the room. Keep it simple. Don't overcomplicate the process. Your goal is just safely to return the athlete to activity. You want to take your out guys, move them to limited. You want your limited guys to go to full go, and then you want them to avoid re-injury in the process. So rule number one is really just to keep it simple. Tip number two, review the literature. So we do this with every injury in our building that's longer than a week. We have our staff, they do a PubMed review. We have our physicians talk to other physicians around the league, things to think about, what has changed, what's current, et cetera. We had a player a couple of years back that sustained an isolated axillary nerve injury. 26 years, I've never seen one. Dr. Voos, he talked to some of his colleagues, got some tidbits from what people have seen, and it really helped in our process as we work through it. So always consult the literature. Tip number three, set realistic expectations. Dr. McAdams talked about it earlier. I think Dr. Voos asked the question, how do you manage your organization? How do you manage your head coach? How do you manage your general manager? How do you manage your athlete, right? Rule number one, just be honest. A grade three MCL sprain is gonna take multiple weeks. The athlete that tells you he's gonna play the next week is likely unlikely. So always be honest when talking to players about their status, what they can expect, what's moving forward. That goes the same for your head coach and general manager. As difficult as those conversations are, having them on the front end and setting realistic expectations really helps guide stress levels, et cetera, as you go through the process. So tip number three, set realistic expectations. Number four, we've probably heard this 25 times in the talks this morning. Have a plan and be methodical about it, right? If you think injury, bang, something happens on Sunday, that player goes inside. Anthony Trem, our physical therapist, is already formulating a plan for the next week that we'll revisit again on Monday morning. You don't wanna lose time on Sunday afternoon when the player's out, right? So be methodical, be systematic about your planning, and then be realistic with the expectations about that plan. Number five, the greatest plan always falls apart. So adjust as necessary. I think the best example of this that I can think of is COVID, right? In the building, out of the building, test positive, this happens, that happens. Players still have to return to play from ankle sprains, from MCL sprains, et cetera. How do you manage a rehab? Adjust on the fly. Toe raises on stairs in an apartment, right? Be able to adjust as necessary. Number six, I'd like to spend a couple minutes here. You've heard this a bunch. Be collaborative. It's a coordinated team approach in returning athletes to play. Your medical staff, your performance staff, your nutrition staff in terms of bone health and calories, et cetera, your sports science staff, your mental health staff. We've heard that a ton during our time here today so far. Player engagement and security, equipment, your coaching staff, your operations staff, these people have to be on the same page as you return your athletes to play, so it's important to be collaborative. Number seven, utilize technology. Be systematic in how you do it. On-field tracking, biomechanical screen, excuse me, excuse me. Functional testing and recovery. Utilize technology throughout your process, right? You think on-field tracking, performance, GPS, catapult, zebra, how do you use it in practice? How do you look at how many accelerations, decelerations a guy's had? How are you screening through your process? Are you using it early on so you can reference it following an injury? Reference your functional tests, reference your recovery. We talked about whoop band earlier, readiness scores. Utilize technology in your process. Tip number eight, listen to your athletes, right? I think Julie talked about it earlier. Your conversations with your athletes day to day tell you a ton. My staff has heard me say this a bunch. As much as you're treating the injury, you're treating the person. Getting to know your athletes, learning what they're telling you day in and day out, you'll pick up a lot. It's a super valuable thing. Number nine, don't forget about mental health, okay? It's super time of increased stress for your athletes. I think the stat was up until the age of 25, everybody's brain is still developing. All these, your adolescence, your youth, your early career guys, they all handle stress differently. We're fortunate in our building, we have three full-time mental health practitioners on staff in our building every day. Any injury that's longer than a couple days requires systematic check-ins with your mental health team. I like to not think of them as your mental health team, no. I like to think them as part of a broader group. They're part of your fabric. The people get comfortable talking to them, they talk to coaches, they talk to players, they talk to staff. They're super, super valuable in terms of the care moving forward. And number 10, this is Dr. Voos's favorite one. Some of the football coaches may not like this, but when in doubt, take the extra week. I can't tell you how many times over the years you debate Saturday afternoon, what do we think? Should we do it, should we not do it? How do you feel? Do you think you can play? Do you not think you can play? Soft tissue injuries, coming back, first week of practice, two good practices, yeah, we feel really good about it, let's see what happens. You know, player wants to go, et cetera. I don't think you're ever wrong and most of your athletes feel better and more confident if you're in that situation, take any extra week. This one's probably the most important slide of the whole thing. Keep the main thing the main thing, okay? Medical decisions are really just that, they're medical decisions, right? You make the medical decision first, you build a sporting decision in around it. Want to share this story with you. This is Joe Thomas, 10,363 career consecutive snaps. He's a first ballot hall of famer. In my 15 years in Cleveland, I was with him all but one year of his career. We have an unbelievable relationship. One of the most valuable things that happened to me during my career is when he retired, he pulled me aside and his message was actually super simple. He said, look, I never missed a snap, 10,363 in a row, right, I never missed a game, I never came out, we were 0-16, we were 1-15, we won two games in three years, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He said, but the single most valuable thing that I took and this was Joe telling me this, is that you were always honest. You always kept it straight, you always told me what to expect, you always told me how to deal with your injuries and you always kept the medical decisions medical and let the football take care of itself. So if you take nothing else away from this talk, keep the main thing the main thing and medical decisions are just that, medical. Thank you.

returning athletes

play safely

valuable tips

methodical plan

mental health