No current Detroit Lions player has been with the team longer than left tackle Taylor Decker. The wear and tear after nine seasons of playing in Detroit was obvious to everyone at the end of the Lions’ playoff run in 2023. Most notably, it was bothering Decker himself.
To that end, the team captain and de facto spokesman for the offense got proactive. Decker underwent some surgical fixes to his feet.
“I‘m going to go ahead and get ahead of this,” Decker told reporters on Tuesday. “I did have to have a foot and ankle surgery.”
Decker missed two games during the season and was a fixture on the weekly injury reports with foot and ankle issues. The veteran left tackle even went into pretty good detail about what procedures he had done to his wounded feet.
“A deltoid repair and a sesamoidectomy with a tendon transfer and a couple bone spurs,” Decker acknowledged.
What exactly is a sesamoidectomy?
It’s a surgical procedure that removes one of the two small bones at the bottom of the base of the big toe. The removal allows for a much quicker return to action than a standard corrective procedure. According to the National Institute of Health, the average return to action time in a recent trial of high-level athletes was 11 weeks.
That timeline would have Decker on the cusp of returning to full action at the start of training camp, barring any complications.
Decker noted that he feels much better already and is excited to not have to deal with nagging pain that has bothered him for some time.