Former Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy may not be signing on with a new team anytime soon after having more surgery on the knee that wiped out most of his 2016 season with Detroit.
Only it’s not the surgery itself that’s probably causing other teams to balk at the thought of signing the veteran linebacker. It’s what the new surgery found.
In a social media post, Levy was pointing to the Lions potentially not being totally truthful in their assessment of his knee opting to put him on the field rather than continue to keep him on the bench.
via ESPN:
Levy initially posted an Instagram story Wednesday, using a picture where he is in a full-length knee brace and on crutches and captioning it “‘your knee is fine,’ they said.”
“Still had the same issues emerge in March as from December/January,” Levy said in an email to ESPN. “Turns out there was a little more damage than I was being told and there’s no way I should’ve been back on the field last year.”
In March, he said “hell no, I wasn’t even close” to being fully healthy when he returned to the field.
This narrative seems to support Calvin Johnson‘s assessment of the team’s medical staff last summer. In that assessment the former Lions wide receiver said the following:
“The team doctor … the team trainers, they work for the team. And I love ’em. They’re some good people. They want to see you do good. But at the same time, they work for the team. They’re tryin’ to do whatever they can to get you back on the field and make your team look good. So if it’s not gonna make the team look good, or if you’re not gonna be on the field, then they’re tryin’ to do whatever they can to make that happen.”
As far as Levy goes, the Lions released the linebacker shortly before free agency in the NFL stating a desire to get younger. But did the team know something that not even Levy knew himself? Did they look to milk everything they possibly could out of the veteran before he was essentially damaged goods?
The NFL is a dirty business and this could be the best illustration on why exactly that’s the case.