Anxious Giants fans worrying if star defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul will return from back surgery in time to play in the Sept. 8 regular-season opener are sweating out another uncertainty:
Will the player they’ve come to know as JPP regain his stature as one of the NFL’s most feared defensive ends?
Well, perhaps those fears can be allayed.
Pierre-Paul following Tuesday’s microdiscectomy has an excellent shot to play in the opener and the odds are extremely high he will once again be a premier pass rusher, according to Dr. Andrew Hecht, orthopaedic surgeon and co-director of Spine Surgery and director of the Spine Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“If you look at all the elite athletes, and by elite athletes I’m talking about Olympic, collegiate and professional, 90 percent of them return to their elite level of competition,’’ Hecht told The Post yesterday.
Hecht noted he has never examined Pierre-Paul or seen the films of his back but has performed “too many to count … I mean, hundreds upon hundreds’’ of microdiscectomy surgeries. That is the procedure JPP underwent in Los Angeles, performed by Dr. Robert Watkins.
Hecht, a spine surgical consultant for the Jets and Islanders, also sits on the NFL’s brain and spine committee. He said a microdiscectomy is “the most commonly performed spinal operation’’ and he put the average recovery time for an NFL player to get back on the field at 12-14 weeks. The Giants estimated Pierre-Paul’s recovery time as approximately 12 weeks. The season-opener in Dallas is 13 weeks away.
“It looks very promising,’’ Hecht said. “I’ve never seen the guy, I don’t know how bad he is, but on average the Giants quote seems very appropriate. It’s very common and the prognosis is excellent, the outcome is usually very good, he had a terrific surgeon who did it. Everything is going in his favor.’’
Pierre-Paul had a herniated disc in his lower back that bothered him all of last season, although he did not miss any games.
“You think of the disc as a jelly donut, it’s a very simple analogy,’’ Hecht said, referring to a herniated disc. “The nucleus is the jelly and the covering of the donut is called the annulus. What happens is the annulus tears open and the jelly inside comes out. When the jelly slips out it ends up in a place where it shouldn’t, such as near nerves. And when it starts to exert pressure on a nerve it gives a patient pain in the distribution of that nerve, such as down the leg.’’
In a microdiscectomy, Hecht said, “they remove the herniated piece of disc or the herniated piece of jelly. They do not take all the jelly out of the disc, just the herniated or loose pieces.’’
The rehabilitation schedule can vary depending on a player’s position. As a defensive end, Pierre-Paul has to put his hand on the ground.
“It’s a little bit more of a rehab for patients who are down in that crouch position versus let’s say a wide receiver or a quarterback, but it’s really a nuance I wouldn’t get into,’’ Hecht said.
Once he is healed, Pierre-Paul should not be viewed as an athlete with a bad back or a back issue.
“When you had a herniated disc surgery you always have a risk of what’s called a re-herniation. … It carries with it a 5-8 percent chance,’’ Hecht said. “That means another piece of disc can come out at some point in your life. But that’s not something I would quantify as a back issue. I would not call it a back issue.’’
paul.schwartz @nypost.com