Jake Locker will have surgery on Wednesday to repair the Lisfranc injury in his right foot that caused the Titans to place him on injured reserve and end his season.
As a result of that move, Locker will end the year having started just 18 of 32 games over the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Injuries to his foot, hip and shoulder have kept Locker out of the lineup almost half the time, leading some to slap an injury-prone label on him. It’s not a label that Locker accepts.
“It does bother me,” Locker said, via Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean. “I feel like I have always done everything in the offseason, and put in the preparation to be as healthy and as strong as possible to prevent things from happening. And I’ve just had some freak deals that have unfortunately been major injuries for me.”
There’s nothing about any of the injuries that Locker has suffered that suggests his offseason work has been lacking or leaving him at increased risk of injury. That said, it’s hard to argue you haven’t been prone to injury, for whatever reason, when you’ve missed as much time as Locker’s missed the last two years.
Those absences will make it hard for the Titans to avoid looking for other quarterback options this offseason because it is hard to build around a player who is only in the lineup half the time.