GREEN BAY, Wis. – The way T.J. Lang looks at it, he’s fortunate that he has had only one surgery in his NFL career.
That’s about to change for the Green Bay Packers' reliable seventh-year guard.
Lang, who has missed only one game this season and just two since he became a starter in 2011, said Friday that he will need offseason shoulder surgery.
“Which one, though, I’m not sure,” Lang said during an interview on Friday.
It could be both.
Lang has been listed on the injury report with a shoulder since Week 11. He said his left shoulder has been bothersome for three or four years, while his right one has been a problem for the last year and a half.
“When the time comes, I’m always like let’s put it off until next year,” Lang said. “That offseason, you don’t want to miss six months of training or lifting and then come back out of shape. It’s a job security thing.”
He doesn’t think he can wait any longer despite being able to gut it out since he missed the Dec. 3 game at Detroit. The only previous surgery he had was on his wrist in the offseason following his rookie year of 2009. He missed all of the offseason program the following year and did not become a starter until 2011.
“The thing with the shoulder is you just find a way around things and new techniques to try to protect yourself a little bit,” he said. “And I’m going into a contract year next year. I don’t want to look too far ahead, but I don’t want to be playing next year with more pain than what I have right now. Obviously, that’s a business decision.”
Lang and fellow starting guard Josh Sitton both are hurting. Both were listed as limited participants in practice this week leading up to Sunday's NFC wild-card playoff game at the Washington Redskins.
They haven’t missed as much practice time as they did late last season, when they could barely step on the field during the week. Sitton isn’t quite as bad off as he was last year, when a painful toe injury prevented him from practicing much over the final two months of the season. This year, however, it’s a bad back that has landed him on the injury report for most of the year.
“There were weeks last year that I just knew for a fact that I couldn’t go out and practice,” Sitton said. “I think that probably hasn’t been the case with the back. I would say the toe was probably a little bit bigger.”