Kiko Alonso Gets the Opinion He Was Looking For

PHILADELPHIA (973espn.com) - Forum shopping is an every-day occurrence in the legal world recently displayed to NFL fans during the Tom Brady Deflategate case.

Kiko Alonso has been doing his own forum shopping in recent days, desperately trying to find a doctor who would let him play in 2015 with a partially-torn ACL.

And Alonso not only got his wish Wednesday, he got the white whale of the sports-injury community in his corner. The famed Dr. James Andrews says the inside linebacker will be able to play again this season but not before putting Alonso through exploratory, arthroscopic surgery to determine whether his original ACL repair was holding up.

An NFL source confirmed to 973espn.com that Andrews did indeed find that Alonso's original repair was not loose and that he will be able to play with a brace on his troublesome left knee.

Alonso suffered the partial tear of the ACL in the Eagles’ Week 2 loss to the Cowboys and flew down to the Gulf Coast of Florida to get the famed Andrews' opinion this week.

There are typically only two options for handling a Grade 2 ACL sprain (a partial tear), according to  former San Diego Chargers team physician Dr. David Chao.

The first is the tact that the Eagles are now heading down -- sit out a few weeks and rehab the knee with the intent of playing with a brace and hoping for the best.

The second and more cautious approach would have been a revision ACL reconstruction surgery, which obviously would have cost Alonso the rest of the '15 season.

The good news on Alonso was foreshadowed by Chip Kelly Wednesday morning when addressing the possibility of adding an extra offensive lineman after Andrew Gardner's season-ending injury.

"We'd like to have nine (offensive linemen), that's an ideal number for us," the coach said. "But because we have two linebackers down that aren't an injured-reserve candidate type guys in Mychal (Kendricks) and Kiko, so you have to figure out where to get that extra spot."

That pointed toward Alonso taking the rehab route, waiting for the swelling to subside, slapping on the brace and playing at some point, although Kelly claimed he was not aware of any surgery plans.

"I don't think he is having surgery," the always clandestine Kelly said. "He is coming back on Friday. We'll see where he is at."

-John McMullen covers the Eagles and the NFL for 973ESPN.com. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen