Andy Richardson
Montario Hardesty tore his ACL in his first exhibition action last week. Like Ben Tate before him, the second-round running back will spend his rookie season on injured reserve. It's a shame, and not only because I took him in the first round of my rookie draft this year.
Hardesty had excited his teammates and the running-back starved Cleveland fans just minutes earlier, showing impressive leg power while bulling through defenders for 25 rushing yards and a touchdown. The Browns have been looking for a franchise runner for a while, and targeted Hardesty in April's draft. Now they'll have to wait a year before they see if they found one or not.
Football can be cruel. The Hardesty and for that matter Tate stories are two of the strongest examples, but not the only ones. How about the players, rookie and veterans, who made it onto 53-man rosters after Saturday's cuts -- only to be waived a day later when their teams claimed players cut by other franchises? Gotta be a drag to celebrate making a team on Saturday, only to be kicked to the curb on Sunday. Especially somebody like David Clowney, who makes the Jets only to be unseated by some guy who couldn't make it with the receiver-poor Dolphins like Patrick Turner.
I think about such stories a little bit when holdout situations like Vincent Jackson occur. Jackson could have made more than $3 million this year simply by signing his restricted free agent tender. Instead his chances of not playing at all this season are growing by the week; he's certainly not making any money.
But how much can I knock these players when I know they're always just one play from blowing out their knee (Javon Walker), suffering a gruesome broken leg (Leon Washington), or -- worse -- being wheeled off the field in a neck brace?
Teams get burned too by players getting hurt, or flopping, but at least it's only money. If the Browns don't have a successful running game this year, Eric Mangini might get fired. But he's not going to have knee pain for the rest of his life when the temperature drops.
Back to Hardesty. In the space of a few minutes, the guy went from being clapped on the back by his teammates after his first NFL touchdown, to being patted on the shoulder by trainers who probably had a good idea early on that he'd torn ligaments in his knee. That's what you call a rollercoaster.
The season starts in a few days. We'll see Brett Favre return to the site of both his Super Bowl win 13 years ago, and his painful beating and ankle injury eight months ago. We'll see the Saints celebrate the ultimate goal of NFL players, and the Vikings reflect on just how close they came, and how hard it will be to get back.
As you're watching, set aside a moment from thoughts of how much money these guys make just to play a game, and how lucky they are. Think how quickly it can all end for them, and how easily something they've worked for their entire lives can be taken away.
Next year, Hardesty will be back on the field playing football. Things aren't over for him: another recent Browns running back, Jamal Lewis, came back from a torn ACL to have a 2,000-yard rushing season.
That's the bright side to all this. I watch because I love football, and I watch to see how my fantasy players do. But I also watch for comeback stories, because that's when you really see something worth getting excited about.
Bad as it seems when a guy gets knocked down, it makes it even better to see him get back up off the turf and pound out another touchdown run. A year from now, maybe that guy will be Montario Hardesty.
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