Chiefs OL Nick Allegretti played through Super Bowl LVIII with torn UCL

Nick Allegretti found himself thrust into a starting role along the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line in the wake of Joe Thuney’s pectoral injury in the divisional round. While rising to the occasion and playing 79 offensive snaps in the eventual win over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII is impressive enough, it grows in K.C. lore when you learn Allegretti played most of the game with a torn UCL. 

Allegretti told The Jim Rome Show on Friday that he suffered the injury in the closing minutes of the second quarter when blocking Niners pass rusher Nick Bosa. 

“I haven’t suffered an injury like that until then,” Allegretti said, via NFL.com. “I immediately knew. It was something that you heard a pop, you felt it, and knowing minimal about anatomy knew that something was wrong in my elbow. Because my elbow is not supposed to bend that way. Fortunately, we had the two-minute warning, and I had a couple seconds to gather myself, figure out that my arm still bent and I was able to go. It was a tough situation, but fortunate enough I was able to still play.”

Allegretti already had the tall task of filling the shoes of Thuney, who had earned first-team All-Pro honors and a Pro Bowl nod this season. The injury threw another wrinkle into his ability to protect Mahomes, but overall was solid allowing four pressures in the game, per Next Gen Stats.

“I would say, for me, I don’t think you’ll ever experience a nine or 10,” Allegretti said when asked about the level of pain he was in. “If you do it’s going to be something really, really bad. So I was probably in that six or seven [range] right when it happened after I processed it. And then at halftime we were able to get the cream on it, massage it a little bit and then throw a brace on it. I was probably playing at about a five. It was one of those things that I could confidently use the arm knowing that most likely the UCL was already gone, so I wasn’t going to tear it any worse. So if I could deal with the pain, I could play. So it was one of those things.

“One of our backup offensive lineman, he has a masters in biology and we wanted to go be a doctor when he was done. He told me, he goes, ‘Listen, you don’t need a UCL to play offensive line.’ I was like, alright, I don’t know what that means, but I don’t need it, I’m good.’ So I was able to go.”

Allegretti and the rest of the Chiefs line was able to keep Mahomes upright enough for the quarterback to lead a second-half comeback and eventual overtime win to give the franchise its third Super Bowl title under his tenure. For Allegretti, a seventh-round pick out of Illinois in 2019, this was also the third championship of his career.