Surgery Answers Questions on Friesz : Football: Status of the quarterback’s future in NFL is good.

Dr. Gary Losse said he successfully reconstructed the torn anterior cruciate ligament in the left knee of Charger quarterback John Friesz on Monday, and he said he found almost no further damage in the one-hour procedure than what he had initially anticipated.

As a result, he said, he expects Friesz to recover in time for the 1993 season.

“When we do one of these procedures under an hour that means everything goes right,” said Losse, who is with the team in Providence, R.I. “He would have to have a complication develop for this to be a career-ending injury.

“If he heals as a normal 25-year-old healthy male should heal, he certainly should not have a career-ending injury. If there are no complications I’m very comfortable in saying that John will play next season.”

Losse did not rule out the possibility of Friesz returning later this season, but he said, “generally for football players the rehabilitation time for one of these injuries is six to 12 months. That’s what I’ve told John, and I don’t want to put any pressure on him.”

Losse said he was already moving onto the field as Friesz was falling to the ground Saturday night in Phoenix. When he saw the blow delivered by linebacker Ken Harvey, he said he knew Friesz was in trouble.

“I knew within 15 seconds by the examination on the field what we had,” Losse said. “From that second on my hope was he didn’t have anything else wrong with the knee.

“We found today that he had completely torn his anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament and we found a very small tear of his lateral cartilage. But it was really small and not that significant, and that’s what the positive news was. I knew going in he had the torn ligaments, but we hoped he didn’t have any damage to the joints, and he did not.”

Losse reconstructed Friesz’s anterior cruciate ligament arthroscopically, but he said it’s normal procedure not to repair the medial collateral ligament in situations such as this. The medial collateral ligament will heal on its own, he said.

“Everything went well today, but there are so many things he has to go through before we can say he can play,” Losse said. “It’s hard to predict when he will be ready. I told him, ‘you’ve got about a 100 hurdles you got to pass before you can play football.

“The first one is to take that first step on the knee tonight. It’s really premature to talk about this season, but I don’t see any problem for minicamps and training camp next year.”

Losse, who suffered the same injury as Friesz in 1968 while playing quarterback for Wisconsin, is considered one of the top arthroscopic surgeons in the country. He reconstructed the injured knees of quarterback Mark Vlasic and running back Rod Bernstine, and both players recovered and remain active.

“I think John will approach this like he does everything else,” Losse said. “He will be very positive. He’s very easy to take care of; he never gets too high--never gets too low. He has handled it very well.

“In our spectrum of work this as serious as you get, but it’s become relatively common. We’ve made a lot of technical advances. Years ago guys got this and it was the end of their career. Now throughout the league you are seeing guys coming back. Timm Rosenbach for Phoenix had the same injury last year, and it certainly didn’t affect his arm the other night.”

Losse said the first goal will be to get Friesz off crutches in the next week or two. A continuous passive motion (CPM) machine has been attached to his knee to speed up the recovery process.”

Losse said Friesz will wear a knee brace when he returns to the field, “during the protective period, which runs six to 12 months. Once his knee is stable and the player feels comfortable, he can come out of the brace.”

Said Coach Bobby Ross: “They think they got an excellent repair. They feel very good and positive about it.”

After reviewing the tapes, some players were not so positive about the play in which Friesz was injured.

Offensive tackle Broderick Thompson called Phoenix linebacker Ken Harvey’s flying tackle on Friesz’s knee a “a late, malicious hit.”

“(Friesz) was out of his rotation, looking at the flight of the ball,” said Thompson in La Jolla. “(Harvey) had two steps, after that it happened. Clearly, he was going after the quarterback’s knee. Something has to be done about it.”

General Manager Bobby Beathard met with John Adler and David Morway, agents for holdout defensive tackle Joe Phillips. It is believed Adler and Morway gave Beathard a new offer. Phillips had been seeking $1 million for next season.

Adler said he still wants the Chargers to trade Phillips.