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If you happen to be an Achilles tendon on an NFL player, it just hasn’t been your month.
Those often-overlooked thickets of muscle and fiber behind the ankle have been popping like champagne corks at a society wedding since the end of the lockout, with a stunning 10 players already seeing their season ruined before the first exhibition game by an injury experts say is nowhere near this common in a normal league year.
Considering the labor stoppage kept players away from their teams — and team doctors and team athletic trainers and multi-million-dollar team weight rooms — for five months, this rash of injuries overall, and Achilles tears in particular, seems predictable to those in the know.
“Achilles ruptures are kind of a classic ‘weekend warrior’ injury, and I can imagine that’s what the lockout turned many of these players into,” said Dr. Andrew Pearle, an orthopedic surgeon at Manhattan’s Hospital for Special Surgery and a former member of the Giants’ medical team.
Lockout or no lockout, injuries are a part of every NFL training camp. But the flurry of torn Achilles has been shocking, particularly because it’s an injury that can strike at the oddest times and, more often that not, involves no contact.
Witness Browns punter Reggie Hodges, who was kicking out of the end zone in one camp drill recently and collapsed in a heap just one step into his motion.
Not all debilitating injuries have been Achilles-related, but the vast majority have involved the lower extremities. Two first-round picks, the Giants Prince Amukamara and Nick Fairley of the Lions, are out several weeks with broken bones in their feet.
That trend of lower-leg injuries leads experts and players alike to finger as the leading suspect the months of forced downtime because of the lockout.
“A lot of people say it’s guys not working out, but if you’re working out but not doing football-type drills, your muscles aren’t accustomed to making cuts and things like that,” Giants defensive lineman Justin Tuck said. “I’m not surprised by [all the Achilles injuries].”
Ironically, the lockout might have led to fewer such injuries both this year and in the future because one outcome of the resolution was the elimination of two-a-day practices and a dramatic reduction in on-field workouts throughout the year.
“Who knows how many more of these [injuries] we’d be seeing already if these coaches didn’t have to give up their beloved two-a-days,” a prominent agent told The Post, referring specifically to such noted taskmasters as Tom Coughlin and Eagles coach Andy Reid.
Some coaches, however, argue that more practice time could prevent injuries for the very reason doctors say is causing the flood of Achilles ruptures — too much downtime between high-intensity football drills involving lots of cutting and jumping.
“[Tearing of the Achilles] is an injury particularly
common with the rapid resumption of ‘explosive’ activities [such as cutting and jumping] after a relatively sedentary lifestyle,” Pearle said.
The restrictions on practice time written into the new collective bargaining agreement — an entire month, for instance, was cut from the offseason conditioning program — are tying some coaches into knots.
“It’s a balancing act in a lot of ways, and it’s a fine line because you’re trying to get them ready to play in a game,” said Leslie Frazier, entering his first full season as the Vikings’ boss. “You’ve got limited reps that you can have because of the new rules for training camp, but you’re conscious of injuries and that’s a part of the game too.
“You just hope that it’s not any of your key guys [that go down], but you know injuries are going to occur.”
The players know it, too, which is why so many don’t appear particularly surprised or alarmed by something that has been a fact of life in the sport since, well, forever.
“Every year, guys get hurt in training camp,” Tuck said. “The lockout probably added to it, but who’s to say this wouldn’t have happened even if there was no lockout?”
bhubbuch@nypost.com