Are you hurt or are you injured? This is an old football adage I learned in high school.
It means, can you push through your pain? Or do you need to come off the field? At its heart, this gut check is football’s guiding ethos. The further your football journey goes, the more pain you endure.
In the NFL, everything hurts and everyone is injured. So the new question becomes: Can you play or not? This puts the player, who is always fighting to keep his job, in a precarious position. Can you play or not?
Broncos tight end Noah Fant answered this query in the affirmative before the Chiefs game last Sunday and proceeded to take the field on an injured ankle in the freezing snow. The result was a sub-par statistical performance for Fant, but one that earned him praise for being “gutsy,” which goes a long way in establishing a locker room identity for a young player in search of one.
Fant is a second-year player and a cornerstone of the Broncos’ young offense. He was a first-round draft pick, and the only knock on him has been that he isn’t a good blocker–which is code for “lacks toughness.” That a professional football player could be thought to “lack toughness” is itself laughable, but players get labeled, and the label sticks. So when a player sees an opportunity to change the narrative, he is wise to seize it, like Fant did Sunday.
A “high ankle” sprain takes longer to heal than a regular sprain and is a bit trickier to rehab. Most ankle sprains — as long as you manage the swelling — you can play through. Athletic tape does wonders for some football injuries: none more than the ankle. Before every practice and every game on every football team in America, players line up barefoot and jump up on the training table to get both ankles taped. Once you get used to the support of the tape, to play without it is to play naked.
In addition to ankle tape on bare feet, players also get tape wrapped around the outside of the shoe, called a “spat”, which adds even more stability. These measures fortify weak ankles and can help provide confidence to an injured player that he can play, despite his injury. Powerful anti-inflammatories also help. So does an occasional injection, if necessary. And, of course, the adrenaline of game day can help turn a throbbing limb into an afterthought.
In addition to the above mitigation techniques, the weight of destiny is perhaps the strongest: the belief that, as an athlete, the place you truly belong is on that field with your brothers. The window on an NFL career opens once, but can quickly shut forever. For Fant, this is his moment to set the trajectory for his career. To have success, not just as an individual, but as a unit, players must put the good of the team before their own self-interest. That means, if the team has a better chance to succeed with me on the field, even in the state I’m in, then I have to be on that field.
The pain may keep you up at night. When you get up in the morning, you might barely be able to walk. But as you get to the stadium, your limp starts to improve, and after the injection and the pills and a massage and a nice, tight tape job, you start to think, not of the pain in your ankle, but of the pain of the regret you’ll feel if you watch the game in sweats.
So when they come to your locker two hours before kickoff against the Super Bowl champion, and they ask you, “Can you play or not?” — the answer is easy.
Nate Jackson is a former wide receiver/tight end for the Broncos who lives in Denver. He works part-time for 104.3 FM The Fan.
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