Similar Injuries Could Have Similar Outcomes
We live in a here and now society.
More, better, faster!
Patience isn’t just a virtue anymore. It’s a quality soon to be added to the endangered species list.
We want it all, and we want it now!
These thoughts ran through my head today while watching yet another NFL Draft show, and listening to a discussion about Notre Dame’s Jaylon Smith.
It’s hard not to feel compassion and deep empathy for Smith. Here’s a hard working kid, a leader with high character and nearing the finish line of a life long goal – to play in the NFL. And then he blows out his knee during his final collegiate game.
All of the hours of work and training and the years of juggling sports with scholastics – it’s all about to pay off and then an opponent unexpectedly shoves him close to the whistle, contorting his leg in an unnatural way.
Expectations and dreams come crashing down like special effects in a Transformer movie. It’s hard to imagine what was going through Smith’s mind at the time. The surrealism must have been outer-worldly – so strong that the injury could NOT be real.
Yet it was.
And when Smith went down I couldn’t help but to think of an eerily similar injury 13 years earlier, when Willis McGahee blew out his knee on January 1, 2003.
Both players were playing in the Fiesta Bowl.
Both were playing their final collegiate games.
Both were expected to be top 5 draft picks.
And both saw those expectations blow up in a matter of seconds.
Fortunately both took out insurance policies in the event of an injury. McGahee just hours before his game ponied up $20,000 for a $2.5M policy. Smith paid $50,000 for his $5M injury benefit.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/r_wPOfTGegA[/youtube]
Of course neither dividend can offset the trauma of a dream blown to smithereens but at least it serves as some sort of consolation prize.
Most thought that McGahee would fall to round 3 of the 2003 NFL Draft but to everyone’s surprise the Buffalo Bills chose the former Miami Hurricane with the 23rd overall pick. McGahee was overjoyed and worked hard during the season he would miss, to rehabilitate his knee and reward the Bills for the chance they took on him.
During his three seasons in Buffalo (2004-2006) McGahee rushed for 3,365 yards and 24 touchdowns. In 2007 he was traded to the Baltimore Ravens for a third and seventh round pick in 2007 and a third in 2008. As a Raven, McGahee rushed for 2,802 yards in 4 seasons and scored 35 touchdowns and despite the devastating Fiesta Bowl injury, he would go on to play for 10 seasons, rush for 8,474 yards and score 65 touchdowns.
Comparatively speaking, Larry Johnson, a running back taken by the Kansas City Chiefs with the 27th overall pick in 2003, finished his career with 6,223 yards and 55 touchdowns during his 9 seasons in the league.
And even though the Bills probably didn’t get out of McGahee what they hoped before trading him, over the course of his career he rewarded the league as the 40th best all-time rusher – ahead of names like Terrell Davis, Herschel Walker, Roger Craig and Priest Holmes. The Bills organization deserves credit for having a vision, the faith and the patience to invest that first-round pick in 2003.
But don’t expect a similar set of circumstances for Jaylon Smith from any NFL team during the 2016 draft.
Remember, it’s a “now” world.
Teams don’t have the patience required to park their first-round pick in the training room for an entire season.
But that said, teams should revisit the McGahee injury and the circumstances leading up to the 2003 NFL Draft and take note of the career that followed.
If Smith’s determination is anything like McGahee’s, a productive career might follow.
With four picks in Round 4 of the 2016 draft, the Ravens should give Smith some serious consideration, assuming of course he’s not already gone.
But then again, in this here and now world, he just might still be there and happily accept Ozzie Newsome’s call.
