Giants’ Cam Skattebo injury: Could this threaten his career? We asked a surgeon

For seven-plus games, Cam Skattebo made Giants fans fall in love with him. Then his magical rookie season ended suddenly, with one brutal twist of his right ankle, in Sunday’s 38-20 loss at the Eagles. This is a devastating blow to the Giants and to Skattebo, a fourth-round running back who captivated the NFL with his fearless, hard-charging style. He produced 617 total yards, seven touchdowns and plenty of hope for a beaten-down franchise. Skattebo underwent surgery Sunday night in Philadelphia to repair his dislocated ankle. He will miss the rest of the season. But how long will Skattebo be sidelined? And how much could the injury impact the rest of his career? “I don’t think this is a career-ending injury,” Dr. Kenneth Jung told NJ Advance Media on Monday. Jung is a foot and ankle surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Orthopedics in Los Angeles and serves as the Rams’ foot and ankle consultant. So dislocated ankles are his specialty, though he has not directly evaluated Skattebo. While Jung fully expects Skattebo to be ready for the start of next season, he said this sort of injury can present some long-term issues for an NFL running back. “He’s got enough time to rehab this adequately and be back by [Week 1] next season,” Jung said, adding that Skattebo is facing “at least” a four-month rehab process. The Giants will not rush him back for spring practices, but recent history has shown a player can recover from this injury at midseason and be ready for the next season’s opener. In 2020, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott suffered this same dislocated right ankle injury — including a compound fracture — on Oct. 11 against the Giants. Prescott was able to return for Week 1 in 2021. Jung envisions a similar outcome for Skattebo, who suffered his injury 15 days deeper into the season than Prescott. “He’s got someone he can set up on his target as a goal: This is a reasonable rehab goal,” Jung said of Skattebo using Prescott’s recovery window as a motivating factor. Still, a dislocated ankle can cause cartilage damage. That, combined with the disruptive reality of a joint being thrown out of alignment, poses “an increased risk of post-traumatic arthritis,” Jung said. “That would translate to pain and stiffness.” Skattebo could encounter those problems when he returns, even though he is still young. (He turns 24 in February.) Jung said this is all worth monitoring for Skattebo and the Giants’ medical staff, as Skattebo tries to regain his explosiveness in 2026. “He’s obviously a skill position player, and that’s always a little more challenging, because they rely on speed, quickness and power,” Jung said. “All those elements can get affected by a joint that’s stiffer, especially in the immediate time after recovery.” A dislocated ankle is a lot different from, say, a dislocated shoulder because an accompanying fracture is much more common with a dislocated ankle. This injury often involves both a fracture and torn ligaments, Jung said. “It’s pretty rare just to have an isolated dislocation in the ankle [with only torn ligaments],” he said. “There’s usually a fracture involved.” And the fracture sometimes is a compound break, with bone penetrating skin. Jung believes that might have happened to Skattebo, based on the images he has seen. “If you look at his pictures, the foot is rotated to the outside,” Jung said. “So a lot of times, what happens is the bone on the inside of your ankle — that bump on the inside of your ankle, which is your tibia — can pop through the skin, because the skin is getting stretched. If there was blood immediately, then you know it’s a compound fracture.” Skattebo underwent surgery Sunday night — a sign he might have suffered a compound fracture. Doctors want to operate on those as quickly as possible, to reduce the chance of infection, which can prolong a player’s rehab process (or have more serious effects). “If it was compound fracture, that becomes an issue where you’re worried about infection,” Jung said. “The rate of infection goes up. You’ll go to surgery [immediately], not just to fix the fracture, but more importantly, to wash out the wound. Because if there is a wound or a compound fracture, there is a higher chance of infection.” While Jung didn’t notice any clear signs of blood on Skattebo’s ankle — just based on videos and photos of the incident — “obviously, you can’t see everything,” he said. So what does surgery for a dislocated ankle involve? Well, if a player suffers a compound fracture, he might require a second, follow-up procedure a few days later, to make sure the impacted area is fully cleaned — on top of all the structural repairs that need to be done. A surgeon uses plates and screws (or just screws) to realign the bones. That’s the first step. Then comes ligament repair. Fixing ligaments in the ankle is different from repairing the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee. Because the ACL is inside the knee joint, a surgeon can’t just sew it together. A donor’s tendon is typically grafted on. But in the ankle, a surgeon can sew the ligament back together — or even sew the ligament back onto a bone. “As you stabilize the fracture, you help restore the positioning of the bone — and then you repair the ligaments,” Jung said.