When can a twisted ankle be fatal?
When it happens in the first few days of training camp.
Ask any player or any coach in the CFL -- too many days on the sidelines and you're toast.
You've heard of dead man walking? In the CFL, with small rosters and short camps, it can be dead man limping.
"Training camp is pretty strenuous on your body so you're going to have guys who get banged up and miss practice; you put that in perspective," said Edmonton Eskimos head coach Richie Hall. "But the thing is, you don't want guys to miss big chunks because it messes up the timing and decreases their opportunity to be on the football field."
Meaning it greatly decreases their chance of making the team. Coaches need to see what a player can do -- in practice and in the preseason games -- and if he can't make it to the starting lineup they simply can't hold a spot for him, regardless of his potential or physical tools.
"Especially for the young guys, we don't know how they react in a game," said Hall. "But one man's misfortune is another man's opportunity. For every person that misses ... we still have to practise, so that gives someone else an opportunity to move up. It's an unfortunate situation, but if you think about it, that's how life is. We're not going to cancel the game and we're not going to cancel practice, either."
He's not kidding. Yesterday at camp defensive lineman Jim Davis hurt his shoulder during one of the reps and was rolling on the turf in agony. The coaches simply moved the rest of the players 15 feet to the left, so as not to trample Davis and the trainers, and kept practising.
"It's the old line 'Move the drill, he's killing grass out there,' " quipped Hall, who doesn't want to make light of an injury, but knows the show must go on. "You're concerned about the health of those guys, but the reality of it is we can't help them."
They don't need 80 players standing around gawking.
"The medical people are going to take care of him," said Hall. "They're going to get him up and we're going to continue (practising)."
Life, and football, must go on.
"If something happens to me in my personal life, I still get a bill from VISA," said Hall. "That's the reality of it. It might sound cruel, but that's life. The clock doesn't stop just because something happens. We move on as a football team.
"Somebody that's not practising means somebody else is going to take his reps and they're going to get better."
The players know it, which is why nagging injuries in camp always hurt worse between the ears than wherever the ice bag is.
"It's rough because I started out in camp pretty good," said O-line prospect Greg Wojt, one of a handful of banged-up players who are watching nervously from the sidelines. "Being injured takes reps away that you can impress the coaches with.
"It's definitely frustrating seeing the older guys have to take extra reps because guys are injured. They're getting tired and it's frustrating not being in there to show the coach what you can do."
So he works out the mind until the body is good to go.
"You take mental reps and study the playbook more," said Wojt.
"You do everything you can to get better without being on the field. Paying special attention to film study and the playbook, so I can be mentally ready when I get back."
