Joe Flacco Injury: Baltimore Ravens quarterback has surgery to repair torn ACL

After tearing his ACL and MCL against the St. Louis Rams in week 11, the Ravens knew they were going to be without their starting quarterback for the remainder of the season. However, the full timeline was going to be determined with surgery and rehabilitation. According to head coach John Harbaugh, Flacco was set to have surgery on Tuesday.

We received the update. [Senior vice president of public and community relations] Kevin [Byrne] and I were walking in, and we received the update from [head certified athletic trainer] Mark [Smith]. [Joe Flacco] is going to have surgery tomorrow [at] 10 o’clock with Dr. [James] Andrews down in Alabama, and he was there today to get his pre-surgical examination done."

The name Dr. James Andrews should inspire a ton of confidence. The foremost orthopedics surgeon when it comes to professional athletes, Flacco is in the best hands possible. Dr. Andrews has been the doctor to the best of the best in all different sports. Bleacher Report in their report on Andrews, has a list of some of the bigger names he has been associated with.

Andrews has operated on such notables as Peyton and Eli Manning(above), Reggie Bush, Drew Brees, Barry Zito, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, and just this week, Andrew performed surgery on New Orleans Saints' wide receiver Lance Moore after Moore injured his left shoulder while lifting weights.

That's not even to mention running back Adrian Peterson, who had an ACL tear of his own and has returned to the same level of player we all saw prior to his injury. Sadly for the Ravens, Dr. Andrews has been a little too attached to this team as of late, having done the scope on first-round and now injured reserved wide receiver Breshad Perriman earlier this season.

With the injury happening several weeks ago, many fans might be questioning why surgery was just performed this late. Flacco and Dr. Andrews had to wait until the swelling had gone down sufficiently in order to operate. With surgery happening today, Flacco's timetable is generally thought to be between nine months and a full year, however, Harbaugh has said that he expects his quarterback under center come training camp.

Indications that I’ve been given would be that [Joe Flacco] would be back for the start of training camp, and it wouldn’t be an issue. However, as we well know, those are always things that get determined based on how the rehab goes."

Hopefully surgery has gone well and the Ravens can get their quarterback immediately into rehab mode so he can be the NFL's Comeback Player of 2016 with another #Elite performance.