When cornerback Dee Milliner was being analyzed before the draft, one of the negatives often mentioned was that he had five surgeries during his career at Alabama including one to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder earlier this year.
That wasn’t enough to stop the Jets from drafting him ninth overall in the first round last month. They must be happy to hear, then, that Milliner says that concern about the operations has been overblown because none of them were particularly serious.
“Oh man, because all of the surgeries were nothing. They were nothing major, all of them were minor,” Milliner said, via ESPNNewYork.com. “And then, I don’t like to miss games. I just try to go out there, if I’m in the game, and play like I don’t have any injuries. I like to go out there. You have to make a sacrifice, so I sacrifice if I have an injury, but I’m going to go out there and play in the game.”
Minor though it may have been, the shoulder surgery is expected to keep Milliner off the field during the Jets’ offseason work. He is expected to be cleared in time for training camp, however, and that should give him plenty of time to win the starting job vacated by a certain Buccaneers cornerback that Nick Saban really hopes you’ll never mention in relation to Milliner at any point.