Nerve damage in knee jeopardizes career of Vikings DL Floyd

Sharrif Floyd's play­ing ca­reer is threat­ened by a nerve is­sue in his right knee caused by last Sep­tem­ber's sur­ger­y to re­pair his me­nis­cus, a league source told the Star Tribune.

Floyd, one of the Vi­kings' three first-round picks in 2013, missed all but one game last sea­son af­ter under­going ar­thro­scop­ic sur­ger­y on his right knee. Com­pli­ca­tions from the op­er­a­tion have af­fect­ed a nerve and the quad­ri­ceps in his right leg, which still aren't work­ing prop­er­ly six months later. He is con­tinu­ing to re­hab with the hope of a full re­cov­er­y, the source said.

USA Today first re­port­ed Floyd's con­di­tion.

Floyd, 25, is signed for next sea­son un­der a fifth-year op­tion, which the Vi­kings ex­er­cised last May. His $6.757 mil­lion was pro­tect­ed against in­ju­ry, so the Vi­kings could not have cut or restructured Floyd's con­tract be­fore his sal­a­ry was full­y guar­an­teed at the start of the new league year March 9.

Brian Mackler, Floyd's a­gent, did not re­spond to multi­ple re­quests for com­ment but told USA Today that "Sharrif is rehabbing, has seen some of the best doc­tors in the coun­try, will con­tin­ue to re­hab and hope­ful­ly this will heal soon­er than later."

Leg in­ju­ries have stunt­ed the quick-foot­ed Floyd, who has missed 20 games and parts of more in the past three seas­ons. He has under­gone at least two oth­er knee op­er­ations, in­clud­ing one in 2015 to re­move car­ti­lage from his left knee that forced him to miss most of four games.

Floyd hasn't spok­en pub­lic­ly since his lat­est sur­ger­y but post­ed a cryp­tic mes­sage on his Instagram ac­count last week "to the big guy #upabove."

"I'm down on one knee pray­ing my road doesn't end here," Floyd wrote. "There are so many more lives to touch, so much more joy to spread. You've be­lieved in me for to long to turn your back now. Don't let me go out this way. All I ask is for a fight­ing chance… this game means so much to me and the foun­da­tion is still be­ing laid one stone at a time."

The Vi­kings shed little light last sea­son on Floyd's sta­tus while he re­mained away from the team for near­ly three months af­ter Sep­tem­ber sur­ger­y. He wasn't placed on in­jured re­serve un­til De­cem­ber, when coach Mike Zim­mer main­tained Floyd had only under­gone the one sur­ger­y on his right knee.

The op­er­a­tion was per­formed by Dr. James An­drews at the An­drews Institute in Pen­sa­co­la, Fla., the team an­nounced at the time. To no avail, the Vi­kings sent Floyd to see spe­cial­ists for his knee through­out last sea­son.

USA Today re­port­ed Floyd ac­tu­al­ly need­ed an ad­di­tion­al pro­ce­dure last fall on his knee. How­ever, the nerve is­sue im­pact­ing his quad has con­tinued into this offseason.

Since Floyd was tak­en 23rd over­all in the 2013 draft, he's com­piled 57 solo tack­les, 9.5 sacks and a forced fum­ble in 44 games.

With Floyd's play­ing fu­ture un­known, the Vi­kings signed form­er Packers de­fen­sive end Datone Jones in free a­gen­cy this month and plan on mov­ing him to Floyd's po­si­tion. Pass-rush specialist Tom John­son is also un­der con­tract, but the Vi­kings have been scout­ing de­fen­sive tack­les in the up­com­ing draft.