Life in the NFL is not an easy one, no matter how much financial success stands to be achieved.
NFL players rarely feel 100 percent, and it’s safe to assume that the majority of players are battling through some sort of injury or discomfort every single weekend. How you manage that pain and still do your job is a huge factor in how successful you’ll be as a player.
In a post for Football By Football — a new NFL website started by former New England Patriots linebacker Matt Chatham — three players detailed the lengths they went to play through painful injuries that would cripple the common man.
“Playing hurt is actually a skill that all NFL players must master,” former offensive lineman Chris Bober wrote. “It requires a certain level of pain tolerance. But most of all, it takes the burning desire to figure out how to make it work so that you can be there for your teammates”
Bober would know.
He detailed the time he suffered a partial tear of his bicep that swelled up so much “they had to cut the armhole of my jersey so I could get undressed.”
Bober missed one game.
“As the center, I was the QB of the line and responsible for making all of the calls and adjustments, and I had to helplessly watch from the sideline.”
