Ten years and two knee injuries. That’s what separates the David Bakhtiari we know today from the one we first got to know in 2013.

It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but the Packers’ left tackle is heading into his 10th season in Green Bay this fall. 10 years of Sundays. 10 years since the Family Night Scrimmage that changed it all.

It’s quite a story, and the repeating nature of the twist — perhaps a cruel word to use in light of the knee injuries that frame it — makes it one worth telling. 

Rewind to that summer and the biggest question was whether or not the Packers could handle a wholesale restructuring on their offensive line. Bryan Bulaga, a mainstay on the right side, was making the jump to the left and bringing Josh Sitton with him, while T.J. Lang was set to slot in on the right side. If it worked, the Packers’ revamped line would be better equipped to protect Aaron Rodgers’ blind side.

Early returns were promising, but we’ll never know what could have been. Bulaga tore his ACL during what would become the last Family Night Scrimmage, leaving a little-known fourth-round pick to take his spot on the left side.

“They're giving me a big responsibility, and I'll have to step up to the plate,” Bakhtiari said then, and step up he did. Until December 31, 2020, there was never any question about who’d start on the Packers’ left side. It was Bakhtiari’s job. He’d never lost the focus that earned him the chance to step in for Bulaga in the first place.

“You have one opportunity; you want to make the most of your opportunity and I don't want to look back and be like, all right, I had this shot but it didn't work out,” he told Vic Ketchman of Packers.com that fall. “I've tried as hard as I can to not fool around, because I can't afford to do that.”

But that fateful December day did arrive, and Bakhtiari’s catastrophic injury that day was a big factor in the Packers’ postseason failures that season and the next. Now, as Bakhtiari finally returns from the Physically Unable to Perform list, he’s almost as much of an unknown as when the Packers called on him for the first time. Three knee surgeries and nearly two years between meaningful snaps will have that effect.

Everybody handles this truth differently, but at some point, we all realize our time is running out. This gig isn’t going to last forever. Nobody gets out of here alive. For professional athletes, that realization has to hit harder than most. Everybody else only has to face the impending specter of death. Athletes have to watch their livelihood taken from them as their once-otherwordly abilities fade.

Maybe that’s melodramatic, but it doesn’t seem like an exaggeration in Bakhtiari’s case. Though he’s had a job waiting for him this entire time, Bakhtiari is keenly aware of what’s at stake. 

"It's been the journey I've had to attack, and I just know that I'm not going to break no matter what," he said after emerging from the hinterlands of the PUP list on Sunday. "I definitely was not gonna go out without fighting. Definitely tested me. I don't know if my test is done yet."

Who knows what he’ll be post-injury. Heck, who knows if he’ll play? Coming off the PUP list is a step, but it’s happened before, and we all know how that turned out. Until we see him on the field — and maybe well beyond — questions will linger.

And maybe that’s okay. A decade ago, Bakhtiari himself was the unknown. Today he is again, and what comes next will be a story worth watching.