Well I am biased hoping Akers wins the lead job outright. Even a 70% split would make my day. And I thought I had a pretty good deal when I drafted him in the 8th round of a redraft. Hmmm.
What worries me is an interview with some talking head on Sirius radio who said no one has ever returned from the same kind of injury Akers sustained with the torn achilles and been the same. Maybe someone who is actually qualified and has watched him can comment. I know his last 4 games last year were fine. Game 1 this year not so much. But possible game 1 the line was just stuffed I don't know and one game isn't the end all.
Would like opinions on if he has lost burst and maybe it isn't just headache but he isn't good now.
I dont know with any certainty.
The achilles injury he had is a serious one and there are players who have not recovered from it enough to play at previous level of ability, but there are some players who have.
Akers tried to play after a short recovery time for this injury in 2022. Which seemed somewhat miraculous at the time that the doctors cleared him to play. However he did not play well.
I speculate that he may have tried to play too soon, and although the doctors cleared him to do so, there have been times in the past when doctors have done this, but it may not have been in the best interest of the player to do so. There is a lot of pressure these players put on themselves to play as soon as they can and pressure from coaches as well. These players are putting their health at risk every time they play and really push themselves to the limit wanting to play when it may be wiser for them to take more time for a full recovery.
Take Swift for example with Detroit. It seemed the coaches were always unhappy about Swifts ability to play through pain and ultimately they got rid of him. I think this is a large part of the reason why. Swift was maybe being different than a lot of players and actually trying to take care of himself here. That is an example of the kind of pressure these players are under to perform, regardless of their health or readiness to do so.
Then Akers played most of last season but not particularly well for the first half of 2022. Then he was inactive for 2 games. Was eased in somewhat again after being inactive and then closed out the season pretty strong in the last 3 games from a performance based perspective.
Its possible that Akers needed that much time to fully recover to his former level of play. Almost 2 years. But his recovery may have been impaired because of trying to play too soon. That may be why he did not perform very well.
Then week one he did not perform well. Was inactive week 2 then traded.
So it just remains to be seen. Maybe he has had enough time to fully recover based on some good games at the end of last season. Maybe he hasnt and will never be the same player he was thought to be as a prospect before the injury.
Maybe rushing back to play has hurt his opportunity for a better and fuller recovery from the injury. Maybe it hasnt. Thats something we will likely never know.
