As a blogger who gets to pick and choose what I talk about, I can sometimes set myself up with delightful win-win situations. Such is the case with Washington tight end Jordan Reed this season. First of all, I need to make it clear that I never root for injuries to happen. Okay, maybe with Albert Haynesworth or Brett Favre or Tim Tebow. But even then, I’m not stupid enough to say that out loud, as that would automatically make me some sort of sub-human beast worthy of your scorn. Honestly though, I’d say that I root for at least 99% of the NFL to stay healthy on every snap, even players that I truly hate like Ben Roethlisberger or Eli Manning (that mouth breathing dummy). Because of my pro-health perspective, it’s sometimes tough to write about injuries that I think I see coming. Players have a hard enough time in the league without having some jackass blogger try to make a name for himself by predicting their injury downfall. Yet here we are. If it’s any consolation, know that I don’t enjoy writing the rest of this piece.
Washington tight end Jordan Reed is flirting with disaster this season. I think he knows it. I think the people around him know it. But I think the media is largely ignoring it. It seems like every few weeks I read a new blurb about how Reed is an amazing route runner who is opening everyone’s eyes during practice, and is set for big things in 2014. He seems to be all over the fantasy football previews as a great rising star, often mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy Graham and The Gronk. (That sounds like an awful drive-time radio show.) In case you need to see the praise of Reed in order to believe me, you can find three quick ones here, here, and here. Those are just three that I found on the always-reliable fantasy football news site Rotoworld, but I’m sure you can find plenty more anywhere you choose to look. A few of those pieces even hedge their bet by mentioning that Reed’s success relies on staying healthy, but I still think they’re guilty of painting a mostly rosy picture.
What’s the big deal with Jordan Reed? Why am I picking on him? Concussions, plain and simple. Reed, a rookie in 2013, suffered (at least) two concussions while in college. Last season in the NFL, Reed suffered another two concussions. To make matters worse, Reed himself admits that he tried to hide the first concussion, and that his coverup might very well have made his subsequent treatment and reinjury much worse than it should have been.
Like I said, I don’t feel great about writing this. Reed has been through a lot, and he has enough to deal with on the field. But from my research I can tell you that the future does not look great for players after suffering so many concussions, especially so close together as Reed’s two during the 2013 season. As always, I’ll beat you to it by pointing out my own shortcoming here and I will admit that I am very much cherry-picking from the worst-case scenarios of recent concussion injuries from my database. But at the same time, that’s at least part of the value of this database. I can pull from it to show some of the comparable injury histories that I think the media is overlooking.
Anyone remember Detroit Lions running back Jahvid Best? He’s the classic and tragic example of how serious multiple concussions can be. Best suffered two concussions in college, then suffered another two during the 2011 season. He never played again. San Diego Chargers guard Kris Dielman suffered two concussions during the 2011 season. Dielman never played again, and is now suing the NFL. Quarterback Kevin Kolb’s career is probably over after racking up four concussions, the most recent keeping him out of the entire 2013 season. Jaguars’ wide receiver Laurent Robinson is still out of a job after suffering a staggering four concussions during the 2012 season. Like I said, these examples are all cherry-picked from my database. There are plenty of people who suffered multiple concussions in a single season and then played without further complication. But not many of them missed as many games as Jordan Reed, indicating that Reed’s injury might be more severe than usual. Also, part of the scary thing about concussions is that each concussion seems to make future concussions more likely and also more severe. Given that info, I don’t see any reason to look at Reed and start baking a big old fluffy batch of optimism. If anything, I see him as a player who is one big hit away from early retirement. Again, I don’t like that, and I hope that I’m wrong. See what I’ve done there? Now if he doesn’t get hurt, I get to run a follow-up where I say, “whew, thank god I was wrong!” But if he does get hurt, then I can run a somber-toned, “See, I told you so,” piece. Or maybe he just gets a different injury and then I never mention him again and I conveniently forget that I was ever so worried about concussions. Seriously though, watch how little press Reed’s high risk injury history receives as we get closer and closer to season previews and fantasy football drafts.
