Here's my high ankle sprain stroy:
I did it in March on Spring Break in Florida with my kids.
I was playing softball and landed on a water bottle. It was so bad when I landed that my vision blacked out from the pain. I saw stars. I lay there face planted into the dirt. Most excruciating pain I ever felt. More than broken limbs and torn ACL and severe burns (though those last for days). I didn't cry or scream (though involuntary tears rolled out from my eyes), but I did lay there grunting. "Are you OK Dad?" was met with the kind of grrrs my dog makes.
I didn't know what had happened, but the pain stayed for several minutes, and after it subsided 5-8 minutes later, I thought the thing to do was walk back to the house 3/4 of a mile. I got back, elevated it, iced it, took ibuprofen, and tried to watch the Celtics. The pain began to throb.
Next morning I awoke at 6 because we were driving 2 hours to Disney and my kids had never been there, so I was going to take them no matter what, my idiocy wasn't going to ruin their first (and hopefully ONLY) time at Disney.
I drove (the sprain was my left foot). Got to the parking lot, realized it was going to be a huge trial. After a while I figured out that I would not be in pain if only I walked straight ahead and didn't turn my foot. So I did that. When I needed to turn, I would stop and make sure of my foot placement. I made it like this through 3 days of Disney without going to Urgent Care. I thought I had a sprain. But when I removed my shoe that night, the sight was gruesome. The foot was huge, ballooned and swollen, the toenails were orange, the skin everywhere was purple except for the bottom of my foot. I looked like the Grape Ape with peach soles. Of course the ankle itself was swollen like grapefruit, but even worse, the tendons running up the sides of my leg had swollen and caused discoloration almost up my knee.
Why am I describing all this? BECAUSE when I visited Urgent Care once we got back to south Florida, they told me I had a really bad high ankle sprain, and they said there was nothing much I could do. Swelling went down 3 or 4 days later (it took a week). I came back to Buffalo where I live, went to work each day in much the same fashion, went about my life. If I was an NFL QB and had to wear a Dan Marino boot, I imagine I could do so after 2 weeks if I could withstand the pain. I wouldn't be able to run very well though. Healing took 6 weeks and I did rehab throughout. I tweaked it a month after that when I carried a 100 pound dresser down my basement steps and turned my leg at the bottom. I'm running and cycling again even though it's still not right.
Point being, given the medical care Mac's going to get, he could be comfortably out there in one month. But if he really wanted to push it (and there's no reason to), he could wear a Dan Marino boot and be out there in 2 weeks.
If I recall correctly, Pollard messed up Gronk's ankle in the divisional round. Gronk missed the AFCCG, and then had the bye week before the Super Bowl. He was out on the field in 3 weeks with a bad high ankle sprain. He was in pain and extremely limited. He did sprint downfield straight ahead once on a bad INT. But that shows you that Mac can play in 3 weeks, and it's not shocking at all that he is walking around on a Friday 5 days after he experienced excruciating pain.
