Niles Paul had a heartbreaking reaction to his season-ending injury
The NFL moves on too fast to spend much time feeling sorry about those who are injured, so Niles Paul’s injury for the Washington Redskins will be forgotten soon, if it hasn’t been already.
What’s often forgotten in the flurry of transactions that come with NFL injuries is that the person just suffered a pretty traumatic event. That’s not a reference to the physical toll of fracturing and dislocating an ankle like Paul did. Paul had an opportunity of a lifetime taken from him in a moment, through no fault of his own.
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Paul is a great story. He was drafted in the fifth round as a receiver. He switched to tight end after his rookie season, and worked to make himself into a starting tight end. He took advantage of opportunities when the more highly regarded Jordan Reed was hurt. He earned his job, and got praise from Redskins coach Jay Gruden for how hard he worked to get it.
“He is one of our strongest players. He is self-made,” Gruden said this week, according to the Washington Post, when he talked about how Paul was a certain starter at tight end for his team. “He works very hard in the weight room. He is very explosive. You can just see since I got here.”
That’s a quote that oozes respect from coach to player. And then, in game one of the NFL’s too-long preseason, everything stopped for him.
Paul was blocking on a run play. Browns linebacker Craig Robertson tried to make a tackle. Robertson rolled into Paul’s leg on accident. Paul suffered a pretty gruesome injury.
He cried on the field, and not because of the pain.
“He said, ‘It was supposed to be my year.’ That’s when he lost it,” said fullback Darrel Young, one of Paul’s close friends, via the Washington Post.
It’s hard to imagine the emotions at that moment. All the work Paul put in for months — years, really — vanishing on one unlucky play. Instead of starting at tight end for an NFL team, Paul will be in for months of rehab and waste one of the precious years of his career, mostly away from his teammates while they move on with the business of the season. On Friday morning Paul shared some of his thoughts.
Even if you’re into the NFL to a point where you’d think about Paul regularly, you’ll move on quickly to Reed or whoever Washington signs as Paul’s replacement. That’s how the sport is. There will be many similar injuries over the final 58 preseason games, too. We’ll pick up Paul’s story next offseason when he gets back on the field and tries to work his way to a starting position again.
But for now, his tale is pretty heartbreaking.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
