Oakland Raiders Shouldn’t Count Jaylon Smith Out

Possibilities and Timetables to get Back

There’s nothing you can do to speed up nerve regeneration and there’s no guarantee it ever fully recovers. But a good sign for Smith is a tingling that he spoke of down his leg and into his foot. He said that it is advancing and that is an indication that the nerve axons are growing back.

Smith said, “I feel different sensations every day. But it’s a thing where it’s patience, so you don’t try to hype yourself up too much.”

Cooper, who’s also the Dallas Cowboys’ head team physician, said, “There’s normally a one-month lag time before the nerve regrows at all, and once it begins, the rate is only about an inch per month. He’s had time for his nerve to regrow two inches and the area of where his nerve was injured is six inches above the muscle that it innervates.

“I wouldn’t really expect him to get much innervation back into that muscle for two or three more months. Then once it does, I’ve seen kids who are completely paralyzed like him on the lateral side and not able to pick their foot up at all, wind up being totally normal. Worst-case scenario, there are surgeries, there are tendon transfers you can do to hold the foot up.

Cooper said, “Best-case scenario is he gets all his strength back. And then in between would be that he gets a lot of it back or some of it back.”

Cooper agrees with the redshirt year and says once a nerve injury is discovered, it usually takes around nine to 15 months to fully recover.

That puts him back anywhere between midseason and this time next year.

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