Antonio Brown, Daniel Jones, Andrew Luck, oh my!
With the NFL preseason wrapping up this weekend, plenty of drama has surfaced. From mini-camp to training camp to full pads games, the NFL always finds a way to make things interesting on and off the field. Here are just a few of the craziest stories to come out during the offseason.
Antonio’s got cold feet
While Antonio Brown almost always has some news and drama surrounding him, his current incident has to be one of his more embarrassing. As Brown begins to start with his new team the Raiders, he’s spending a lot of time enacting some unique training practices. One method he uses is cryotherapy.
Cryotherapy is the use of low temperatures in medical therapy, and apparently one of Brown’s appointments went wrong. He showed to Raiders practice with frostbite on his feet. Although he’s still been out an about at practice, he’s hasn’t played a preseason game yet.
Is his injury worse than he claimed? I guess we’ll find out.
Daniel and the Giants
Taking a quick step back to the draft, one of the biggest moments came when the New York Giants drafted quarterback, Daniel Jones. Jones was the sixth overall pick, well ahead of where anybody thought he would go. Giants fans were irate, and broadcasters were critical. However, in the past three weeks the narrative seems to have changed.
In three preseason games, Jones has gone 25 of 30 passing for 369 yards. Tack on two touchdowns and it makes for a pretty nice stat list. The Giants fans seem to have noticed and have changed the boos to cheers for the rookie QB, but what about the Eli-phant in the room. Two Super Bowl winner Eli Manning seems to have some left in the tank, so Eli is back.
While the Giants management claims that Eli is with no doubt going to be the starter when the regular season comes around, some are starting to question that choice. Eli Manning has been in a slow decline for years. Everyone seems to know it is time to move on. Everyone except the Giants it seems. If Jones keeps his stellar play up, he may force New York’s hand.
Andrew Unlucky
Heading west to Indianapolis, big news came from the Colts organization this weekend. Veteran QB announced his retirement with just weeks before the start of the regular season. The surprising news leaked in the midst of a preseason game against the Bears. At the end of the game, a flood of boos and media surrounded number 12.
The 29-year-old was drafted number 1 overall in 2012. In his first three seasons, he hit a lot of success with over four thousand yards in two of them and a 96.5 QB rating in 2014. In 2015 though, Luck got his first pair of injuries, missing 9 games. In 2016, he returned with a solid season of 4,000 plus yards missing one game with a minor injury.
In 2017, Luck got a shoulder surgery which had some questioning whether he would ever play again. Then the 2018 season rolled around and Luck shut everyone up. He led the Colts to a playoff birth, making himself an MVP candidate along the way. The Colts have been a spicy pick to win the Super Bowl coming into the 2019 season. Then just a few weeks ago, Luck sustained a mysterious ankle injury. The ankle injury was only supposed to sideline Luck for a week or two tops. Yet as the regular season slowly approached, there were talks Luck could miss the first two weeks.
Luck cited these injuries as a big part of his early retirement stating, “It’s taken my joy of the game away.” Without a doubt, this is sad news for the NFL and the Colts, but the continuous debate will go on about whether he made the right decision. Regardless, the Colts have been left a bit dead in the water and what they do for the current QB situation will be an interesting story as well.