Taylor Decker reveals offseason surgery on long-standing foot, ankle injury

Lions LT Taylor Decker says he feels “incredible” after undergoing offseason surgery on a long-standing foot injury.

Taylor Decker paused for a second in the middle of his Tuesday press conference, turned to the Detroit Lions director of football communications Eamonn Reynolds, and decided to break a little mid-April news.

“I‘m going to go ahead and get ahead of this — I did have to have a foot and ankle surgery,” Decker revealed.

Now, before you go into a panic, Decker later said that while he’ll be limited this spring, he expects to be a full go in training camp and for the regular season.

That said, this has been a long-standing issue for Decker. He’s had cross-cutting stress fractures in the ball of his foot (sesamoid) since, he estimates, his junior year at Ohio State (2014). Then, after injuring his ankle early in the 2023 season, it put extra stress on that foot to the point where Decker decided he needed to do something, both to correct the foot issue and lingering ankle injury. The official laundry list of surgeries:

“A deltoid repair and a sesamoidectomy with a tendon transfer and a couple bone spurs.”

Or, as Decker described it, his foot bone was necrotic, dying. Doctors had to remove it.

The good news is the pain relief was almost instantaneous for Decker. After just a single day on pain meds, he was already feeling “incredible,” and believes this procedure will have him feeling better than he has in a long time.

“I feel like walking around today as opposed to the last game of the season, I think it’s going to be even better,” Decker said. “I was talking to my trainers in the offseason, and they’re like, ‘You’re not going to have this thing just nagging at you all the time.’ Maybe be able to maximize it even more. Maybe I’ll feel even younger, and I really do feel like I do.”

It’s been an odd offseason for Decker. Besides the fact that he may or may not be in line for an extension, for the first time in his eight-year career, his offseason has been shortened by a full month. Thanks to the Lions’ deep playoff run, Decker has had to adjust to a shorter turnaround—and even shorter considering the surgery. The key for him has been a strong support system.

“I also have a great training staff that I work with in Arizona, and they were on top of it with every single thing they possibly could (do),” Decker said. “And my wife, as well. She’s phenomenal with taking care of our home and our daughter and the nutritional aspect. She does a ton of my supplements. She’s just so on top of it. She says all the time, like, ‘I just want to help you in whatever way I can.’ Definitely a quicker offseason. But I feel like turning the page (is) kind of revitalizing, helps you get over that hangover of how the season ended.”