Eine Kolumne von ex-Punter Chris Kluwe über das harte Geschäft NFL -und wie man mit verletzten Spielern, vor allem während der Pre-Season, umgeht:
ZitatAlles anzeigenSee, there’s a thing in the NFL called an “injury settlement,” whereby if a player gets injured during the preseason, and the team wants to get rid of that player, they have to cover his medical costs and salary for the weeks he’s predicted to be injured in a one-time payout. This amount can be in the thousands, if not the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, well, NFL teams don’t like parting with their money.
So what happens when a player gets injured in the preseason, especially if he’s just there to be a training camp body, is the coaching staff starts leaning on him. They know he isn’t going to make the team, but they tell him he has a chance. They tell him that he needs to get out on the field, needs to put the pain aside, so he can give himself the best odds of succeeding. They tell him that it’s vitally important to suit up, since they only have a limited amount of reps to judge players on, and no one makes the team from the training room.
Then they have that player sign an innocuous looking piece of paper, generally in the training room, that declares the player agrees he is fit to play in an NFL football game, and releases the team from all liability.
The player is excited! The coaches have been paying extra close attention to him; surely this means he’s going to make it. They wouldn’t do that for just anyone. No, the coaches must really want to see what he can do under the lights, what astounding feats he’ll perform with all eyes on him. He dresses for that fourth preseason game, putting on his uniform reverently, knowing in his heart that he’s finally getting his chance, he’s finally moving on up, and he tries to ignore the broken parts of his body that stubbornly refuse to shut up. He forces enthusiasm until it becomes real, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
“I’ll be fine when the adrenaline kicks in. I can feel my muscles loosening from the special tape job they gave me. Get hype, get hype!”
Then the team puts the player out for one kickoff return at the end of the game, one where the ball is going out the back of the end zone anyway, and they cut him the next day.
Mehr: http://www.si.com/cauldron/2015/…son-chris-kluwe
Sehr lesenswert und ein Blick hinter die Kulissen des Traums "NFL-Profi".