What Isaiah Wynn Can Do For You
ATHENS - The decision that Isaiah Wynn was going to wait to have surgery on a torn labrum wasn’t much of a decision.
“Surgery wasn’t going to happen,” Wynn said smiling in the week leading up to the NFL Draft. “Normally, yes, but there was too much that was going on.”
Too much was was too important was going on.
Days after a win over Auburn for the SEC Championship an MRI revealed that Wynn had suffered the injury. He played in UGA’s final two contests before the the College Football Playoff with the injury. The pain was tolerable as Wynn and teammates continued on the journey of their young lives. Georgia was getting ready to play in the Rose Bowl Game for the first time in 75 years and was trying to win the national title that has so painfully eluded the program several times of in the last decade.
So, no, Wynn wasn’t ready to put the season on hold for his future.
Wynn has explained often that missing out on the playing in the Rose Bowl Game and the National Championship Game wasn’t something he was willing to do to further his professional career. This wasn’t about his future. This was about his now. Surgery was recruited to correct the problem, and missing games against rival Georgia Tech, the SEC Championship Game against Auburn, the Rose Bowl Game against Oklahoma and the National Championship Game against Alabama was a non-starter.
Eventually, however, the season ended, and Wynn’s professional career is here now. As Wynn continues to creep up draft boards around the league, he’s left explaining what he can or could do rather than having the ability to show it - particularly in the weight room. Dr. James Andrews performed the surgery he had to correct the tear, and the procedure was successful. But it prevented him from properly showing what he can do during the critical run up to the NFL Draft later this week.
“The last time we did 225 bench was the banning of the summer 2017,” Wynn said. “Coach (Scott) Sinclair just wanted to see where everyone was at. Off of no warmup I was at 24. I believe, with the way Ryan trains, I could have at minimum have hit at least 30. I know that for a fact.”
Ryan is longtime Atlanta-area trainer Ryan Goldin of GATA, who has a slew of clients in the NFL including veteran Bengals’ offensive linemen Clint Boling and David Andrews, who went from an undrafted center to a Super Bowl Champion and captain of the Patriots in a matter of a couple of years.
“He told you 30?,” said Goldin of Wynn’s pronouncement. “He would pass 30 reps with no problem. I think more like 33 or 34.”
The injury may be taking up some of the talking points about Wynn right now, but it wasn’t obvious to him when it happened. He had suffered a torn labrum on the other side of his body in high school.
“I had a torn labrum before, so I knew what it felt like, but I didn’t know that this was that, too. Before I couldn't do anything. This time it was just difficult sleeping and putting on a shirt. I didn’t think it was that bad,” he said. “When I was younger I couldn’t raise my arms, or really do much of anything.”
After the MRI, Wynn determined that, because he was likely sliding inside to guard, he would need to take advantage of the Senior Bowl in January - even though he was still dealing with the injury. Surgery would have to wait just a little bit longer again.
“I had to play the Senior Bowl,” he said. “My 2016 tape wasn’t what it need to be - it sucked. I had to show that I could move inside. The week was good, but the first day was rough. I am a perfectionist. I want the technique to be perfect. If I win the rep, and its not perfect - that’s a lost rep to me.”
Analysts raved about Wynn’s performance during the critical event.
“I thought Wynn, the Georgia tackle who played guard this week, was the most intriguing guy here,” NFL Media draft analyst Mike Mayock wrote in January. “He had a dominant week of practice. He's helped himself a great deal.”
The knock on Wynn’s size has been well discussed in NFL world. But the former Georgia captain pushes back on that thinking, saying that he might not look prototypical, but he can do what’s needed and more.
“I’m pretty sure everyone that lined up against me in 2017 thought: ‘I’ma whip his ass,’” he said. “Just like in the weight room I can move some weight. If we are going up on the field - I know I can block you.”
He says he’s eager to fight, win and adapt in the league.
“Say I go against the best of the best and lose the first rep. I am going to criticize myself,” he said. “I have a heart. I will win the next rep. I don’t like to be beat or be embarrassed. You have to be willing to change and adapt. I would find a way to get it done.”
That’s one reason why he’s jumping up boards right now. Wynn says his tireless effort on the field and in the weight room are what have provided him the opportunity he has at the next level. Wynn says he’s nervous about an unknown future, but that it is a good nervous.
“It is an exciting, nerve-racking thing,” he admitted. “I get to go experience something I have never done before.”