Top 5 Injuries That Will End Your Fantasy Football Season
1. Torn Achilles – The list is long and semi-distinguished: Vinny Testaverde, L.T., Ronald Curry, Sam Cowart, Trent Dilfer, Cam Cleeland and most recently, Todd Pinkston. But no injury sidelines a player for the year faster than the torn Achilles tendon. It is the thickest and strongest tendon in the body and gets its name from a myth about the hero Achilles, whose mother tried to make him invulnerable by dipping him in the river Styx. However, she held him by his heel, leaving that as his only vulnerable spot. He was later killed during the Trojan War by an arrow directed at his heel.
2. ACL Tear – We could lierally fill the page with players whose seasons have been ended by this common injury. The injuries are so significant that running backs and wide receivers are bumped down a round or two in the following year’s draft. While its prognosis is not what it once was, with the improvements in sports injuries, it can still take you out of the fantasy running quicker than you can say Willis McGahee.
3. Turf Toe – What sounds like an injury that shouldn’t hamper a player on the PGA tour, actually turns out to be a brutally painful and nagging affliction. The actual pathology is a tearing of the capsule that surrounds the joint at the base of the great toe. If severe, this can result in instability and dislocation of the toe at its base. Ask Jeremy Shockey whose 2nd NFL season was ruined by the Giants Stadium turf. Two of the toughest QBs in the NFL, Tennessee Titans’ Steve McNair and Green Bay Packer’s Brett Favre, have also been sidelined with it.
4. Hip Pointer – AKA, the “Bo Jackson.” This injury ended the football career of the legendary two-sporter. The term hip pointer is a colloquial term for an inflammation of the tissues around or connecting the bony prominence on each side of the front of the hip. The condition can be very painful and is usually the result of a fall or direct blow to the area. Despite eventually developing avascular necrosis of the hip requiring a hip replacement, Jackson went on to hit 16 home runs as a member of the baseball Chicago White Sox.
5. Compound fracture – The mother of all football injuries. Made famous in 1985, when SPM’s favorite son Lawrence Taylor ended the career of Hall of Fame quarteback Joe Theismann. Other victims have included Tim Krumrie and Napoleon McCallum. The sickening sight of it speaks volumes about its seriousness. Just be thankful you’re not there to hear it as the snapping sound often associated with it can stick in your memory for a lifetime.
