Davis (not his real name) was a sophomore linebacker who made a tackle close to our sideline. When he emerged from the scrum holding his left arm, the trainer and I locked eyes ever so briefly, both instantly recognizing the injury and the near-term implications. After reducing Davis's shoulder on the sideline, we had to hold his helmet so he wouldn't go right back into the game. In the locker room, the first question came, ''Doc, when can I play again?'' This is a classic sports medicine scenario that we all deal with on a weekly basis. For Davis, the season only had one remaining game, and we decided to surgically stabilize his shoulder in order to maximize his return the following season. Although the return to football during the same season was in question, a return the following season was never in doubt from the athlete's perspective. Our profession's success with the surgical treatment of shoulder instability has enabled athletes to expect to return the next season. Although so much of the conversation on return to play with shoulder instability has focused on return in the same season with nonsurgical treatment and the risks of recurrent instability episodes, our profession has paid relatively less attention to the return to play considerations after surgical repair or reconstruction. However, renewed interest in this topic has recently arisen. Although many conclude that surgical stabilization in high-risk athletes with shoulder instability has superior outcomes compared with nonoperative management, 3,6 the relative advantages of different stabilization techniques are open for discussion. In this issue, Hurley and colleagues 7 present a systematic review on the subject of return to play after Latarjet coracoid transfer. They used pooled data to find that Latarjet coracoid transfer resulted in return of 89% of patients to sports at a mean of 5.8 months, with only 72% returning at the same level. Recently, Abdul-Rassoul and colleagues 1 presented a similar study focusing on the return considerations following numerous stabilization techniques, including arthroscopic Bankart repair, arthroscopic Bankart with remplissage, open Bankart repair, open Latarjet, and arthroscopic Latarjet. They found that arthroscopic Bankart repair resulted in the highest rate of return to play-98% at 5.9 months-with 92% returning to preinjury levels. Although arthroscopic Bankart repair had the best athletic return