The most important factor in Achilles repair, renowned surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache says, is not the tendon itself.

Nor the muscles around it. Nor the material of the sutures.

“The thing that has to be the most right,” ElAttrache says, “is the guy. The guy that Achilles is attached to.”

In the span of a few months rehabbing in Los Angeles in 2023, an oft-surly 40-year-old quarterback became pals with a 25-year-old goofball of a running back. This is the J.K. Dobbins Effect — the smiling man who won over Aaron Rodgers.

The ex-Ravens running back came to ElAttrache with a torn Achilles a couple of years after blowing out every lateral ligament in his knee, and he never wavered. At one point, he hopped off his training table in the middle of physical therapy, ran into a room where R

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