Dr. Neal ElAttrache has operated on Tom Brady, Leonardo DiCaprio. Broncos RB J.K. Dobbins is one of his favorites.

The most important factor in Achilles repair, renowned surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache says, is not the tendon itself.

Nor the muscles around it. Nor the material of the sutures.

“The thing that has to be the most right,” ElAttrache says, “is the guy. The guy that Achilles is attached to.”

In the span of a few months rehabbing in Los Angeles in 2023, an oft-surly 40-year-old quarterback became pals with a 25-year-old goofball of a running back. This is the J.K. Dobbins Effect — the smiling man who won over Aaron Rodgers.

The ex-Ravens running back came to ElAttrache with a torn Achilles a couple of years after blowing out every lateral ligament in his knee, and he never wavered. At one point, he hopped off his training table in the middle of physical therapy, ran into a room where Rodgers was speaking live on air with ESPN’s Pat McAfee, and chirped at the quarterback to get back to rehab.

ElAttrache reconstructed Kobe Bryant’s Achilles. He performed Tommy John surgery on Shohei Ohtani. He gave Tom Brady and Leonardo DiCaprio new knees.

Dobbins, the now-26-year-old Bronco, will always be one of ElAttrache’s favorites.

“I can’t say enough about him,” ElAttrache said. “I mean, he’s the kind of guy that I would like to have as a friend forever. He’s that kind of person.”

The general NFL public can be forgiven for assuming Dobbins’ career was all but over before ElAttrache repaired his Achilles. It would’ve been two decades ago. A torn Achilles spelled career death for hordes of productive running backs, including LenDale White, James Robinson, Beanie Wells and Arian Foster.

Achilles rehabilitation has grown leaps and bounds in recent years, with ElAttrache at the forefront. He performed the first “SpeedBridge” procedure on former Los Angeles Rams RB Cam Akers in 2021, bringing Akers back to play just six months after tearing the tendon. Still, recovery is no guarantee. And yet Dobbins was “joyful,” as ElAttrache remembered, throughout an otherwise miserable experience.

When training back home, Dobbins sent his surgeon texts of most anything that was happening to him. Updates. Video clips of him cutting, usually with some sort of message attached, like: Can you tell which leg it was? 

“If every player I took care of had J.K.’s personality,” ElAttrache said, “I would be 100% successful the rest of my career.”

Dobbins, who signed with the Broncos in June, brings a significant injury rap sheet to Denver. After a productive rookie year with the Baltimore Ravens in 2020, Dobbins blew out his knee the following training camp. He played half a season in 2022, with midseason surgery to remove scar tissue. He blew out his Achilles in the preseason of 2023. Denver tossed him a one-year flier in June, with $2.5 million of incentives for him to return to the player he once was.

That player may be gone. But the player who remains is a veteran who submitted a fuller body of work in 2024 — after the Achilles tear. After signing a one-year prove-it deal with the Chargers, Dobbins didn’t hit edges with as much efficiency, but he was virtually the same rusher up the middle in a 905-yard season. He also had more catches (32) and pass-blocking snaps than the rest of his NFL career combined.

“You never want to expect they’re going to be 22 years old again,” ElAttrache said. “You can’t turn back the clock and go before, when he was that number one (running back) for the Ravens.

“But, having said that, his performance was still right there.”

ElAttrache’s modern approach to Achilles repair began with Bryant’s rehab in 2013, when he first experimented with techniques to help disseminate the amount of tension that went back to the Achilles. Athletes have to essentially re-train their gait perfectly, ElAttrache explained, rebuilding strength without putting full weight on the tendon.

A decade later, Dobbins’ rehab involved long stints on an anti-gravity treadmill. ElAttrache and physical therapists slowly dialed up the amount of body weight he was walking on — from 40% to 100% of his full mass — until he had a perfectly symmetrical gait.

Exactly a year after that torn Achilles, Dobbins promptly exploded for 266 yards on 27 carries in his first two games in Los Angeles.

“My thing is to be a blessing to other people,” Dobbins said. “And if they see my story, and they’re like, shoot, maybe they had bad days, maybe they got fired, all right.

“Or, you hear about CEOs all the time,” he continued. “They send thousands and thousands of emails, and nobody ever answers. And then that one clicks. And then they made it. So, that’s all I’m trying to do.”

Dobbins averaged just 3.8 yards a carry after that torrid two-game start with the Chargers. But he chipped away at Denver for 96 yards on 25 carries in October, and defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said Dobbins was “one of the best guys we saw.”

“One-on-one, he was a tough tackle for us,” Joseph said. “I’m happy he’s a Bronco.”

Dobbins is Denver’s primary answer to a backfield that slumped last season. But he doesn’t need to be the Dobbins of old in Denver. Rookie RJ Harvey is there to add off-tackle burst. Dobbins can settle into a role as a between-the-tackles runner and pass-protector.

If the year calls for it, though, there’s still three-down juice left in Dobbins’ legs.

“I don’t see how you can say, going into the season,” ex-Ravens RBs coach Craig Ver Steeg said, “he can’t be a workhorse anymore.”

Before and after

Broncos running back J.K. Dobbins was productive in his first year back from an Achilles tear with the Los Angeles Chargers last season. While he didn’t produce the same burst on off-tackle/outside runs, he was able to do damage between the tackles and provide a reliable threat on passing downs. Here’s a look at Dobbins pre- and post-Achilles surgery.

Mobile users, tap here to see the chart. 

Source: Pro Football Focus

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