Shawne Merriman will start the season, but he might not finish it.

He knows that, and he is not obsessing. He seems neither optimistic nor pessimistic about his chances of still playing in December or January.

He just wants to start the season.

“If it's game to game, I've got to play the first game,” he said.

Merriman will have reconstructive surgery on his torn posterior cruciate ligament and lateral collateral ligament at some point.

But after four doctors advised him in the past week that his best course of action was to have that procedure on his left knee immediately, Merriman said yesterday he will begin the season.

“I'm going to play until I can't take it anymore,” he said. “ . . . I'll go out there and do everything I can, put off the surgery till it's time to get it.”

“It's literally game to game,” Merriman said late yesterday.

NELVIN C. CEPEDA / Union-Tribune A somber Shawne Merriman acknowledges that doctors and others have advised him to have surgery, and not play.

Graphic: Ligaments provide stability

It comes down to this, which those who know him best figured it would all along, despite the fact most around him were advising he go under the knife immediately:

Merriman will play because he can.

“To be as simple as possible, I just want to play football,” he said. “That's what it came down to.”

But he has no delusions.

“I know what's on the table,” he said. “I know what's on the line.”

Merriman has been told he is better off having the surgery now than waiting. He has been advised he can make the injury worse by playing, that he can eventually wear out the cartilage in his knee by playing in this state. That would, without a doubt, threaten his career.

But to him, playing makes more sense than surgery.

“I think I'm taking a risk if I sit out and have surgery right now when I can play,” he said.

He is close to alone in that assessment.

Even the Chargers, who subsequently passed him on his physical, advised him immediately after last season to have reconstructive surgery. He declined then because he wanted to play. He figured if he did, he might not be ready to play until October or November.

Of course, he faces the same possible scenario – if he makes it through this season.

“We'll see,” Merriman said with a shrug.

Merriman already played five games, sometimes limited, with both injuries. In fact, he tore the PCL in his second NFL game, an exhibition contest at Minnesota in 2005. He tore the LCL last Dec. 9 at Tennessee, when he was hit by Kevin Mawae and David Stewart.

He wore a brace during that time and will again this season, though the brace can offer only so much assurance with the ligaments involved.

Dr. Neal ElAttrache, director of sports medicine and orthopedic surgeon at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, said Merriman will feel instability during games. He said Merriman will have trouble dropping into coverage and “weighting and un-weighting.”

The midweek battle for Merriman will be against pain and swelling, the latter of which weakens the muscles around the swollen area.

“It's very difficult to control the swelling,” ElAttrache said. “At the point where he starts to get uncontrollable swelling, the fear is he causes irreversible damage.”

ElAttrache said the danger is that with Merriman's two tears, which will limit his stability from side to side and front to back, all the force will be put on the medial side of his knee. That will soften the cartilage, and it will wear down. That cartilage does not regrow, and the knee can end up bone on bone.

Merriman acknowledged he has been told this by doctors.

“But that's over a long period of time,” he said.

For now, Merriman plans on being the same player who runs to all corners and has led the NFL with 39½ acks over the past three seasons.

“If I wasn't able to play at a high level and do the things I can do, I wouldn't make this decision to play,” he said. “It's about me knowing what I'm capable of doing and getting things done. . . . Same old Shawne Merriman. That's what I'm hoping. Only one person upstairs – and I don't mean upstairs, but all the way upstairs – knows how that's going to play out.”

ElAttrache sounded as if he was pretty certain how this will play out.

“He will very quickly find out he's not the player he should be,” the doctor said. “I hope he figures it out before there is irreversible damage.”

Merriman met with team President Dean Spanos and General Manager A.J. Smith at about 11 a.m. to inform them of his decision.

He was back on the side field at Chargers Park yesterday, strutting to the FieldTurf with strength and conditioning coach Jeff Hurd about 15 minutes into practice.

He proceeded to go through the same workout he has been doing most of August, including the day before he left on his cross-country sojourn to see specialists. It is an arduous workout that seems to tax the knee – in a controlled manner – as much as any practice or game.

Watching him, there would seem to be little doubt he can play in the opener Sept. 7 against the Carolina Panthers.

The widespread belief is that he is making the wrong decision. He has been counseled by former players and his closest advisers to sacrifice this season.

By playing at the level he has, which means double digits in sacks, Merriman can make up to an additional $1.5 million in escalators. He is risking not only his '09 salary (currently approximately $3.7 million) but possible future earnings.

Signals point to the Chargers not re-signing Merriman when his contract is up after 2009. And if he were to suffer a catastrophic injury, they could release him after this season.

Merriman has insisted throughout the past week that while he is aware of his future, his decision would be about now.

And yesterday, he said this, which is all anyone needed to know about his thought process and why it led him where it did:

“My job is football, and that's it.”

---

Kevin Acee: (619) 293-1857; kevin.acee@uniontrib.com