When he suffered a fractured left fibula and tibia in Week 6, Detroit Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson was leading the NFL with 7.5 sacks and he was on the fast track to winning Defensive Player of the Year.
Since his injury, Hutchinson has offered up optimistic updates on his rehab progress and when he has been seen without crutches. Right after the injury there were reports he could play in the Super Bowl if the Lions had gotten there, but of course that was rendered moot with their Divisional Round loss to the Washington Commanders.
Hutchinson appeared on Thursday's edition of "The Pat McAfee Show". The host hinted at potentially playing in the Super Bowl when he introduced the Lions' defensive end, then McAfee asked Hutchinson if he would've been ready to play in the Super Bowl.
"I, you know, you never know,” Hutchinson said, fairly sarcastically, “I think so, maybe I wouldn't, maybe I would, the world will never know.”
Aidan Hutchinson gives promising update on his rehab
McAfee then asked Hutchinson how he feels.
"I feel good," Hutchinson told McAfee. "I’ll be wrapping up rehab pretty soon, and then I’ll be moving on with my life.”
Hutchinson had a season-ending fractured ankle when he was at Michigan, but he called rehab from this leg injury "the worst" and "this one, that tibia break was an absolute monster."
Hutchinson went on talk about the disappointment of his injury, while looking ahead to his fourth season in 2025.
"Despite the pain, being ripped out of that season and knowing what I could have done and what could have been, that’s what I have the hardest time with," Hutchinson said. "But then again, I’m going into year four next year, so I’m young and I got a lot of good football left and I know I can pick up on it."
Next week will mark four months since Hutchinson suffered his injury. It appears he had cut-and-dry breaks of his tibia and fibula, and in a conversation with Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press this week Dr. David Chao gave his perspective from afar along that line.
“I’ll give you the good news, I haven’t examined Aidan Hutchinson. I didn’t do his surgeries, I didn’t see his X-rays, but I would not be worried much at all. I would expect a 100 percent recovery for him. Paul George, NBA player, Olympian, similar open fracture," Chao said. "There’s lots of other examples. I fully expect, this is not an Alex Smith issue from Washington. This is not an open-end fracture dislocation that gets infected. There’s no infection going on here. It’s a tibial shaft fracture, people do very well with rodding. This is not an Alex Smith situation, expect him back 100 percent. That is the good news of all of this."
