Taylor Decker played through pain for most of last season after nearly breaking his ankle in Week 1. Turns out, he's played through pain his entire career.
The Lions stalwart left tackle had foot and ankle surgery this offseason to repair stress fractures in the ball of his foot that he said he's been dealing with since his junior year at Ohio State. That was 10 years ago.
"So it's just gotten progressively worse," Decker said Tuesday as the Lions kicked off their offseason training program. "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 (ligament) was torn."
When Decker got a CT scan this offseason, doctors told him that one of the small bones beneath the main joint of his big toe -- known as a sesamoid -- needed to be removed. The procedure, said Decker, was "a deltoid repair and a sesamoidectomy with a tendon transfer. And a couple bone spurs."
"They were like, 'We have to take it. Your bone is necrotic. It's dying,'" Decker said. "It's hurt me forever. Then, two days after the surgery, I felt incredible. I took pain meds for one day. Walking around fine now. I feel really, really good."
So good, in fact, that Decker, who turns 31 in August, feels like he's turned back time. Or at least slowed the onset of age. As his trainers told him after the surgery, "You're not going to have this thing just nagging at you all the time."
"Maybe I'll be able to maximize it even more," he said. "Maybe I'll feel even younger, and I really do feel like I do."
Decker started working out again in the middle of February. He said he'll be "limited" in activities this spring, but "good to go" come training camp this summer.
"Happy with my decision to go get a surgery," he said. "Just going to be exciting. Every single year is like, 'How can I find a way to get better or do something to maximize myself, and I feel like this offseason has been that."
The Lions' longest-tenured player, Decker said he's also had "base-level conversations" with the team about an extension. His four-year, $60 million contract expires after the upcoming season.
"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 to 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, drafted 16th overall by the Lions in 2016, has long said he wants to spend his entire career in Detroit. He's played under three head coaches, two general managers and four offensive coordinators, and been an asset for each one. He's a steady player at a position where steadiness comes at a premium. The Lions' elite offensive line wouldn't be the same without its leader on the left edge, who made his 100th start for the team last season.
"For them to pick me and then to go through different regimes and coaching staffs and they still say, 'This person adds value. He is what we want to be about,' I take pride in that personally," Decker said. "As far as the team aspect, to see the growth and the metamorphosis of the team changing, it's just super cool because you get to be a part of something bigger.
"These past two years, we've been able to see some success and turn things in the right direction. It happened fast. It's like all of a sudden, 'Oh wow, the Lions are a competitive team. They're a good team.'"
They're coming off their best season in ages. They did all sorts of franchise firsts, from winning the NFC North to winning a playoff game at Ford Field. And then winning another. They won 14 total games and fell just shy of the Super Bowl in a gut-wrenching loss to the 49ers. To Decker, "We showed throughout the season and in that game that we belong in that position. It's not a fluke."
The loss in the NFC title game did leave him with a bit of a "hangover." He couldn't bear to watch more than a quarter of the Super Bowl because "when you're that close to it, it hurts. ... I felt like we matched up well with anybody that we were gonna play."
"But I don't think that's going to change our mindset or how we feel about ourselves, that we came up short. We're just gonna keep moving forward," Decker said. "We have bigger goals ahead of us."