Packers' David Bakhtiari meets goal of returning to play Vikings a month after appendectomy

GREEN BAY – After surgery, David Bakhtiari looked at the Green Bay Packers schedule, and looked for the first game he might return.

He was dealing with a medical condition, not a football injury, after an emergency appendectomy in the beginning of December. That only complicated how this football season would end for the Packers left tackle. An ankle, a knee, a shoulder – the recovery timetables for those injuries are well rehearsed throughout the NFL. This was different.

What Bakhtiari knew is he would miss at least three weeks. From there, it was how well he could manage pain. His colon was sewn shut with 500 micro staples. He could barely poop for a couple of days. When he would be able to block 300-pound men again, only he could determine.

Bakhtiari quickly decided that, if all went according to plan, his first game back would be Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings.

“It was in my mind and the plan all along,” Bakhtiari said. “That three-week mark was going to be, ‘We’ll kind of see.’ Come the fourth week, I had more pain tolerance. Which wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but I didn’t care.

“Come game day, get that adrenaline going, we’re going to go.”

No, the past few days haven’t been comfortable for Bakhtiari. When he returned to the practice field for the first time since his Dec. 2 surgery, he felt tightness in his abdomen. Bakhtiari said it was the scar tissue around his colon loosening up.

He decided to practice through it, determined to be on the field as the Packers tried to position themselves for the NFC’s final playoff seed. Bakhtiari made it throughout his team’s 41-17 win against the Vikings, his first game since a Nov. 27 trip to Philadelphia.

"You have to give Dave a ton of credit," coach Matt LaFleur said. "A couple weeks out coming back from an appendectomy, I mean, that's pretty remarkable. And I thought he did an outstanding job tonight."

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Bakhtiari didn’t allow a sack against the Vikings. With left guard Elgton Jenkins beside him – neither played in the opener at Minnesota – the offensive line opened gaping running lanes for Aaron Jones. The tailback finished with 111 yards on 14 carries, a 7.9-yard average. On a third-and-1 late in the second quarter, Bakhtiari helped seal Vikings outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith.

Jones gained 31 yards on the run.

Still, Bakhtiari said he battled through plenty of rust after missing three games, especially in the run game. Pass blocking comes naturally for Bakhtiari – it always has – but his run-blocking angles occasionally felt rusty.

“I want to look at the film,” Bakhtiari said, “because two things I’ve learned in my tenure, it’s never as good as it looks, and it’s never as bad as it looks. So what I may think is bad is, ‘Eh, it really wasn’t that bad.’ And things I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I really did a good job,’ it’s, no, it could’ve been better here.

“So, really, that’s what I’m going to do and take the time, because that’s how you grow.”

Now that he’s back, Bakhtiari is hoping his availability stabilizes. Before his appendectomy, he had learned how to keep his knee fresh enough to stay on the field week to week following his return from a torn ACL. The time off helped his knee, Bakhtiari said. At this point, his body feels the best it has in a long time.

If Bakhtiari can play through the end of this season without any further hiccups, the Packers could have a formidable offensive line with Bakhtiari and Jenkins anchoring the left side.

"I think anytime you have him and Elgton Jenkins next to each other," LaFleur said, "now I think you're talking about one of the best − if not the best − left side of the ball. That's how I feel. And I know I'm probably biased, but that's how I feel about those two guys. In terms of their ability, whether it's the run game or the pass game, their combination blocks, whatever it may be, just have a ton of confidence in both of those guys.

“Certainly, that's one thing, just going back through the film and watching Week 1 – and it's not a discredit to anybody else – but I look at our line and how different we are when those two guys are in the game."