Madness Strikes 2 High Profile TEs: NO Shockey and CLE Winslow
Two high profile TEs attacked their teams’ organizations on Sunday, blaming their health problems/struggles on just about everything except themselves.
TE Jeremy Shockey - NO - Shockey suffered a setback during his return to the field after a sports hernia/surgery on Sunday, and vented frustration at the Saints’ staff for misdiagnosing his sports hernia in the first place: “I had a fumble that hurt the team. I missed a backside cutoff block,” Shockey said. “That’s on me, 14 points I felt like I gave up today, not because of effort, but just because physically I’m not healthy…”I’m worried that this thing could have been taken care of in camp, like it should have been. If it wasn’t misdiagnosed in camp like it was there’d have been no problems. … Next time I know. When I get hurt I’ll get three or four opinions besides just the team’s.”
TE Kellen Winslow Jr - CLE - Kellen Winslow revealed on Sunday that his undisclosed illness was another staph infection. “There’s obviously a problem [with staph], and we have to fix it,” said Winslow. “Just look at the history around here. It’s unfortunate, because it happens time and time again.” Winslow went on to rip GM Phil Savage for not visiting him in the hospital “A big reason I’m upset right now has to do with [the staph infection],” said Winslow. “I heard from Romeo Crennel, and I heard from my position coach [Alfredo Roberts] when I was in the Clinic. I heard from my teammates. But I never heard from the main man - Phil Savage - and that really disappoints me. Sometimes I don’t even feel a part of this team.”
Now, I don’t know about y’all, but if I were a top-paid NFL TE and I had problems with my groin and needed to have a surgical procedure, you can bet the first thing to do on my list would be to get 3rd and 4th opinions on the best course of treatment. That would just be the way I’d approach a career-threatening injury - but evidently Jeremy Shockey chose to be passive and not take the initiative to protect his body, career and livelihood.
Hey Mr. Shockey, personally, I think that’s on you! It’s your body, and only you know how much pain a particular injury is causing you.
This after-the-fact blame game looks pretty foolish, from where I am sitting.
Now, on to Kellen Winslow’s comments. At first glance, it looks like he’s got a case - after all, there have been an unusually high number of serious staph infections among the Cleveland Browns’ players in recent years - that’s simply a fact. However, there are a couple of other important facts we shouldn’t lose sight of in this situation:
- The Browns’ contract with Winslow specifically forbade him from riding motorcycles, and yet he managed to throw himself from a rice-rocket and wrap his knee around a tree. The reason Winslow has had multiple procedures on the knee in question is because he chose to ignore his contractual obligations, and because the Browns chose to ignore his ignoring of his contractual obligations, and then provide him with medical treatment and reconstructive knee surgery. No motorcycle wreck, no knee surgery.
- Winslow’s chief complaint seems to be that GM Phil Savage didn’t send flowers and chocolates to Winslow while he was receiving treatment for his infection. Gee, I don’t know, maybe Savage had other things to do for his flailing franchise that has to do without their top TE due to ongoing complications from a motorcycle accident? I know my bosses have never come to visit me when I call in to work sick over the years, but then maybe I’ve just worked for less caring guys than Phil Savage in my day.
Sometimes, the diva-ish behavior of NFL players still amazes me.
From a fantasy perspective, it looks like there are reasons to be concerned about both Shockey and Winslow going forward - partly due to their injuries and partly due to their wack-job attitudes. Stay tuned…
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Eh, this is one situation where I’m going to have to disagree.
Playing with a sports hernia and then complaining that something should have been done with it before seems to me to be the opposite of “divaish”. TO paraphrase one of my favorite football movies, there’s a difference between being hurt and being injured. In the case of Shockey, he obviously knew he was in pain - but he was apparently told by medical professionals that it wasn’t the type of thing that needed to be corrected/get worse/etc.
If you’ve played football, you’ve been there. If something hurts but the training staff tells you “it’s just pain, it won’t get worse”, then you’re probably going to try to play anyway. IN the case of Shockey, it got worse.
Should he have gotten a 2nd or 3rd opinion? Maybe. But can you really call him a “diva” for trusting his training staff and then expressing his frustration that they didn’t do their jobs correctly?
As for Winslow, he had a Staph infection after his 2005 surgery, but I’m going to going to go out on a limb here and saw that this Staph infection had nothing to do with his surgery.
A Staph infection is also a potentially life-threatening situation - a little different than “calling in sick”. And I know that my boss certainly called people whenever there was a *serious* illness that required hospitalization.
People love to jump all over professional athletes as overpriced divas. In some cases, it’s warranted - here, it’s not.
Comment by tmarman — October 21, 2008 @ 12:37 pm