00:00This is the Injury Report, presented by NYU Langone Health.
00:05Giants wide receiver and return specialist Braxton Berrios has suffered another devastating injury.
00:10His 2026 season is over after undergoing surgery to repair a Lisfranc injury in his foot.
00:15But just how serious is this injury?
00:17What does the road to recovery look like?
00:19And can Berrios regain the explosiveness that made him such a dangerous return specialist?
00:24Joining me to break it all down this week on Injury Report is NYU Langone's foot and ankle surgeon,
00:29Dr. Kevin Schaefer, who joins me now.
00:31Dr. Schaefer, how's it going?
00:33Well, thanks for having me.
00:35I'm glad to have you here.
00:36Let me ask you this, Dr. Schaefer, we're going to start here.
00:38Braxton Berrios, he underwent surgery to repair a Lisfranc injury in his foot.
00:42For viewers who may not be familiar with this particular injury,
00:45what exactly is the Lisfranc joint complex and why can damage to this area be so serious for an NFL
00:51player?
00:53Yeah, that's a great question.
00:54This is a really critical injury, particularly for explosive athletes.
00:57It's, you know, the foot has 28 bones and a lot of them are really small.
01:01And if I hold this little model up here, you can see right in the middle of your foot is
01:06this row of bones,
01:07really two rows towards the middle.
01:10And that's what really allows you to transmit all of that explosive force from your toes back through your ankle
01:15and up your leg.
01:16And the Lisfranc complex, it's known as the tarsometatarsal joint complex.
01:22It really allows that shape of the foot to be maintained as you explode and drive through off your toes.
01:30So it's really important for football players, particularly dynamic players.
01:35You know, in terms of what the complex involves, it's these bones and these very, very, very stout ligaments and
01:42capsule that maintain the shape of the foot.
01:45And the problem with the Lisfranc injury is if those ligaments are injured, there can be pain and loss of
01:51explosiveness because the foot is not stable right in the middle.
01:54When you look at the history of NFL players returning from Lisfranc surgery, and I know it can differ depending
02:00on the injury, what kind of surgery they had,
02:02how optimistic should we in general Giants fans should be about Berrios getting back to his pre-injury form?
02:07And what would you need to see if you were treating him during his rehabilitation to feel confident that he
02:12can make a successful return in 2027?
02:16Yeah, I mean, I would have pretty reasonable confidence.
02:18Some athletes never return to their prior form.
02:21But along the way, you know, we have a lot of fancy tools to evaluate athletes.
02:26We look at things called proprioception, which is their ability to have balance and coordination of their foot in space.
02:33And we compare it to their uninjured side.
02:35And once they've met a level where they're at their pre-injury threshold or similar to the other side, you
02:41know, then we kind of let them go and see what they can do.
02:43So, you know, again, I'm optimistic.
02:45I think we've come a long way with this injury.
02:47A lot of athletes do really well and, you know, we'll have to see how he does.
02:51But I'm optimistic.
02:52I'm optimistic.
