Cowboys’ nose tackle Jay Ratliff has been recovering from a ruptured plantar fascia, suffered around the very beginning of the offseason, all summer--but team doctors are confident that the All-Pro will be ready when training camp opens later this month.
As for Ratliff himself, his confidence in a quick return is based in good part on his history with rehabbing an injury; he said this week that three years ago, when he underwent multiple surgeries to remove bone chips from both elbows, he learned a lesson in how to (and how not to) bounce back.
"My elbow situation taught me a lesson," Ratliff told Josh Ellis of DallasCowboys.com. "After I had the elbow surgery I was worried about the recovery. I was worried about if I would be ready. And to be honest it took about two or three years to actually get that right completely, to even get back to my old self, my old strength. This, there's really no sweat on my brow ... I'm able to do leg workouts, but for a while I wasn't able to run, I wasn't able to do agilities, and now I'm doing some of that.
"It's finally gotten into a position where I can do that and I can deal with it, so I'm happy about that. That's good enough for me."
A speedy (and timely) recovery aside, Ratliff doesn’t expect to go through the 2012 season completely free of pain. But, he says, this is nothing new.
"We've got a little motto. We joke around about it: If you ain't hurting, you're wrong," Ratliff said. "You can't complain about the pain you have, any of that. At the end of the day, everybody in this business, everybody who is playing this game is in some type of pain."
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