Doctor Gives the Full Picture on Madubuike's Recovery

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]I believe is looking good, but it's a complicated situation cuz we don't know a ton about it. And it's about the situation with Nnamdi Asomugha. Where Adam Schefter reported today that that Asomugha underwent neck surgery.

[00:00:19]And there it is.

[00:00:21]He underwent neck surgery, which people thought when he got hurt last year in week two that it was season-ending and possibly career-threatening.

[00:00:31]Now, after surgery, doctors are very optimistic now that he can return to play this season. I am not even going to start to say that I understand anything about the neck injury, but I do know you understand the complications to this and what the options could be. So, the floor is yours, Yoni. What could this mean and how did we get to this point? Okay, so there's there's so many variables here. Like we we don't know what surgical procedure that Nnamdi had done.

[00:01:08]Here's what we do know. The neck is imperative to normal function. Forget playing defensive line at an elite level. Like this is the very beginnings of our spinal cord. Comes right off the brain and goes down into the neck. So, when there is instability there, you have these discs, which are like fluid-filled sacs that provide cushioning between the bones of your spinal column. And then right behind those those discs live all the nerves that come off the spinal cord. They move through a very small hole called your foramina as they extend all the way down through your arms.

[00:01:44]They control two main things.

[00:01:45][clears throat] One, they control the strength of the upper extremities when it comes out of the neck. So, how strong your biceps, triceps, wrists, etc. and elbows.

[00:01:55]Um they also control pain. So, anything that you touch, it travels up that nerve, goes through that little foramina and up to your brain so that we can experience um sensations. So, it does both of those things. When there's an issue with the neck, I mean, just think about how many times the cervical spine, the neck is compressed, is beaten on at this position. So, that's why we were so concerned when Nnamdi went down with his injury. Now, here's the good news cuz I love sharing good news. Yeah. of Nnamdi.

[00:02:27]Look at Asomugha's neck. There is so much muscle tissue around that neck.

[00:02:33]It's hard to see the guy's ears past his traps. It's amazing. So, he's got a bunch of stability there.

[00:02:39]That's a good thing. Back to the unknown. There are a few surgical procedures which will dictate how quickly we can expect Nnamdi back. He could have something called an ACDF, which is an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. That means they put a hole in the front of his neck while he's asleep. They move everything out of the way, muscles, your uh windpipe, and everything else out of the way so that they can get to the spinal column. They then shave down the disc and put like a patch, a piece of metal over it to hold the bones together. That's the fusion aspect so that it holds it stable. It could be that's what he had done. Could be.

[00:03:19]Now, here's what that looks like if that is the procedure he had done. Number one, we've seen this a few times. We saw it in, I think, Jason Pierre-Paul. We saw it in Michael Bennett to pull from the defensive line world. We also saw it in Peyton Manning. All three of these guys came back from these injuries.

[00:03:37]Obviously, they played different positions, but there's definitely a track record of coming back from this injury to the tune of 70 to 85% in the NFL population.

[00:03:48]Um and it usually takes 6 to 9 months to come back from that injury. It also depends how many levels did this transpire. So, how many fusions had to happen? If everyone is so excited about it, I'm going to take a guess that it was one level cuz as soon as you get to multiple levels of fusion, your rate of return comes down. Um and everyone's really excited. So, if he had that procedure, I'm guessing it was at a single level and then you're looking 6 to 9 months based upon my previous preamble, which is like how much muscle this guy has around him.

[00:04:24]Also, Scott Elliott, the head strength and conditioning coach said this guy is was going into the surgery in outstanding physical condition. So, maybe 6 months we're looking at getting him back, uh which puts us around like October, November, right? So, that's if he had that procedure. Another procedure he may have had is something called an ADR, an artificial disc replacement. So, they pull that disc out. So, remember, the disc will be damaged. It'll be like leaking out onto the nerve root. They actually pull that thing out and they put in a fake disc. This is not as common in the NFL population, although it has been done. There we're looking at 4 to 6 months. So, you're not fusing anything. You're going to have way more motion. You're back at 4 to 6 months if you had that done.

[00:05:08]And then there's one more even less invasive surgery called the posterior cervical foraminotomy. That's where they go in and they just remove like bony spurs. Remember we were talking about last time?

[00:05:20]Um we were talking about low back surgery, right? With Athlon. And we said they moved like some bony spurs from his low back so it stops pinching on the nerves. This is a similar idea in the neck. That's your quickest road back.

[00:05:35]That's also like 3 to 4 months coming back because they didn't fuse or repair anything. They just removed the bony uh like bony uh fragments sitting on the nerve. That's a much easier recovery.

[00:05:48]That's in the 4-month range. So, you're really looking anywhere from 4 to 9 months. I hate to give you such like a wide-reaching uh timeline, but we don't know what the hell he had done. Here's what we know.

[00:06:01]Everyone's positive. Love it, okay? Put that like in the positive column. We also know he's in outstanding shape, massive neck as previously mentioned.

[00:06:11]So, again, a higher likelihood that he comes back.

[00:06:14]I I also know he's one of the good guys out there, man. Like a really good dude who understands how to work really hard is going to hit this head-on, no pun intended. So, all things are looking good that you're going to see Asomugha at some point this year should everything go right. And again, um if it's that first procedure, it's like an 80 70 to 85% return rate. So, reason for positivity.

[00:06:42]Finally. Yeah. Yeah, quick follow-up, Yoni. Uh obviously, maybe it's different for each one of the three procedures, but what would let's say he's back in an October range?

[00:06:55]What could they expect from his play? Is this something where he is going to take a bunch of time to kind of feel comfortable and get confidence back, get strength back? Or is this something where you're hoping, "Hey, when he gets back and he's ready to get on the field, you're going to see the old you know, Nnamdi Asomugha?"

[00:07:14]Yeah, um you know, I I think because he he's going in strong, I think it's going to be a short ramp-up as to when you will see productivity. This isn't like an ACL where he's he's missing strength or control waist down where you're going to lose some of that power, you're going to lose some of that speed. Maybe he doesn't bend as well. Maybe he doesn't drive as well. That's not the case here.

[00:07:36]If anything is going to be weak, you're going to be talking about like weakness around the shoulder. As soon as he gets comfortable with receiving and giving blows with his head, which is what he does for a living, that's a really a matter of comfort. His productivity should be there. I mean, you saw these guys, Pierre-Paul and Bennett, performing at a really high level rapidly. I think the bigger question is longevity. Um like, you know, how long you can stay comfortable at it. By the way, different than when Peyton had it done. Peyton had that as well as other neck procedures.

[00:08:07]All of a sudden you started seeing him throwing ducks. The arm strength and power wasn't there the way it was in his earlier years. Less of a concern for this position. Yeah. Uh you know, one of the questions that I was thinking with one, all the the different procedures, or some I was envisioning they kind of made me, you know, cringe a little bit. But why why is the surgery now, Yoni? You know, why was it just done now? If this is something that took you know, week two of this past season was the initial injury. And then you're trying to figure out what the timeline's going to be.

[00:08:49]Why all of the sudden would it be at this point in time?

[00:08:54]Rip, really good question.

[00:08:57]Great question. I'm I'm I'm outside looking in, right? So, I'm not working, thank God, with Nnamdi on this. So, it's really conjecture, but >> Yeah.

[00:09:07]I think you got to understand that when you look at an MRI and you look at what an athlete needs to do for a living, you're going to get disparate opinions.

[00:09:17]Like they're going to be all across the spectrum. So, Nnamdi could walk into a doc and the doc could say, "Dude, you're you're never going to play again. It's a massive risk." Until they find a doc who says, "You know what?

[00:09:30]Why don't we try this? This gives you your best chance." So, sometimes that process takes a long time. It's also no you know, I I I talked about the surgical procedure.

[00:09:41]They're They're cutting open a human neck and messing with the spinal cord.

[00:09:45]No one wants that. So, they have to try They're going to try everything under the sun to see if it works. Along with attempts of at intervention, things like uh steroid injections, things like maybe PRP injections, things like rehab, different That all takes time to tease out. Is this going to work? No. No, it's not working. It's not working.

[00:10:08]Eventually, someone has to cut my neck open. Sorry to be crass with it. So, it'll take time to do a massive procedure like this. Unlike the ACL, like dude, you tear your ACL, you tear your UCL, we got to fix it. We know the other the other stuff's not going to work.

[00:10:24]So, in this case, it could be a lot of opinions. Yeah. Could be Is there anything about your body just needing time to be in a right position? Is there any type of physical therapy to get ready for a surgery, if that makes sense?

[00:10:38]I I I really think that the interventions he was probably going through is an attempt to prevent this.

[00:10:45]So, not necessarily to prepare for it.

[00:10:47]It's really to try to avoid it.

[00:10:48]Obviously, that didn't work. So, and that that's what just to clarify, you were looking for options, but while you're doing this, the option that you were trying to have be it was avoid surgery altogether, if you could. And then it got to this point of you found a person that believes he can make an impact to allow you to resume football activities, and now you make the choice.

[00:11:13]Cuz that is something that a lot of people had brought up to me so far since the news was was dropped, why at this specific time. So, I appreciate the insight there. And uh thank you for the visuals. It's It's such a tricky Uh the the human body is tricky. When you're talking about the neck, the You say the vocal cords? What did you say about the >> Yeah, they got they have to slide everything out of the way. So, they'll move the muscle in the front of your neck. They'll they'll move everything out of the way so they can get down to the cord. Um get get down to the spinal column to do exactly what I what I described. So, not Listen, no one wants this. Again, it's different than an ACL, which is like, "Hey, it's torn. We have to fix it." There are a lot of dudes playing in the NFL today that have MRIs that probably look similar. It's just a matter of whether they have symptoms, for the most part.

[00:12:07]And then so that's the point, like you're not trying to correct the MRI, you're trying to correct the symptoms.

[00:12:11]They weren't able to do that. So, the surgical technique is the last-ditch effort.

[00:12:17]Well, that is a very deep conversation, which a lot of things can go wrong, but there's a lot of things that possibly went right. So, Zach, positive we >> Hey, I'm taking this as a positive. This is a win. This is a win for us today.