Decker feels ‘incredible’ after foot, ankle surgery
Left tackle has struggled with problems since college days
Dave Birkett
Detroit Lions left tackle Taylor Decker said he feels “incredible” after undergoing surgery this offseason to correct foot and ankle problems he’s been dealing with since his junior year of college.
“I feel really, really good,” Decker said Tuesday on Day 2 of the Lions’ formal offseason program. “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 he underwent a deltoid repair and sesamoidectomy with a tendon transfer and had multiple bone spurs removed from his foot and ankle in a procedure shortly after the Lions’ 2023 season ended with an NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Decker spoke at length with the Free Press about the foot problems he’s dealt with throughout his career late in the 2022 season.
He said Tuesday he’s had stress fractures in his foot both vertically and horizontally since the 2014 season at Ohio State, and his problems were amplified by the high ankle sprain he suffered in last year’s season-opening win against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Decker missed two games with the injury, then started the final 17 games of the season, including the playoffs.
“It’s just gotten progressively worse and it was to the point when I injured the ankle, it was putting more stress on the ball of my foot and the arch because the deltoid was torn,” Decker said. “So they went in there, they did their special CT scan that they do and they’re like, ‘We got to take it out. Your bone’s necrotic. It’s dying.’ So it’s hurt me forever, and within two days after the surgery I felt incredible. I took pain meds for one day. Walking around fine now.”
Decker, who took part in training sessions Monday and Tuesday, said he will be limited for on-field workouts this spring but “as far as come time for training camp and the season, I’ll be good to go.”
A first-round pick out of Ohio State in 2016, Decker, who turns 31 in August, has been the Lions’ primary starting left tackle the past eight seasons. He is entering the final year of his contract and said he and the team have had “entry-level” conversations about a new deal.
“I think my agent and the Lions are on the same page, so it’s very much an amicable conversation so far,” he said. “But super early stages, nothing of substance really, other than OK, we’re going to try and figure something out whether it’s multiple years or it’s not. But we’re very much on the same page, so I feel comfortable with that.”
Decker reiterated Tuesday he hopes to play his entire career with the Lions, though the team has several higher-priority extensions to hammer out with quarterback Jared Goff, receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and perhaps right tackle Penei Sewell and defensive tackle Alim McNeill before turning their attention to his next deal.
Goff, St. Brown and McNeill are entering the final year of their contracts, and Sewell has two years left on his rookie deal, including the fifthyear option the Lions plan to pick up later this spring.
“That would be my goal,” he said. “Obviously, there’s a lot more moving parts than just me on this team. I look at it from my perspective and what’s best for me and my family moving forward. But they have the draft coming up, they have a lot of other guys that are going to sign and for me this would be, knock on wood, a third contract if I do get one. So you have guys that are going into the second contract, so there’s just a lot of variables at play. But it’s not something that I think will be an issue.”