The Jaguars Chop That Wood
Drunken late-night sports bar rambles and bored offseason message boards often discuss amongst themselves the most consequential injuries in their favorite sports. Lamenting the injuries that derailed seasons or careers. They argue over the what-if scenarios. They wince at the most gruesome snaps of tendon and bone and heave exasperated, sad sighs at mental replays of watching their favorite guys go down.
But there is another question. What are the dumbest sports injuries?
I was not familiar with this story before a Jaguars Patreon member brought it to my attention. It occurred in 2003, and maybe because it did not end the career in question, it has seemingly faded into the memories of mostly only those Duvall residents who were there. So let me catch you up to speed.
The 2003 Jaguars were nothing special. They would finish 5-11 after one of the seasons of all time. In fact, the season may not be worth remembering at all save for 2 moments. The River City Relay in week 16, and this.
The team was in rebuild mode. After firing Tom Coughlin the Jaguars installed first-time head coach Jack Del Rio. As coaches are known to do, Del Rio endeavored to come up with a silly slogan for his guys. He settled on “Keep Choppin’ Wood”. There are reasons head coaches are head coaches and not marketing leads.
And yet, as if he came straight out of Mad Men, Del Rio decided to push the Keep Chopping Wood theme so hard that he brought a literal axe into the locker room and told everybody to literally chop wood.
If you have ever actually chopped wood, you immediately understand how stupid this idea was. If you have never chopped wood, you can still probably guess. Since you are reading this, you’ve already been spoiled on where this is going.
Chopping wood is an activity that looks fun hard, but only if you actually know what you are doing when you swing. You can’t just swing an axe at a log and profit. You have to angle it right, with the correct force, all to ensure you actually pierce the wood and not have the axe bounce off or splinter the log the wrong way. It’s just difficult enough that inexperience or slacking off just enough can cause a disaster.
Definitely sounds like the right thing to casually let a bunch of immature dudes in a sports locker room try!
Chris Hanson (not the predator catcher) was the Jaguars’ punter since 2001. He had earned a Pro Bowl nod in 2002, having finally found himself a home in Jacksonville after being cut from several other teams. He decided he wanted even better for himself and one October day took a swing at that log. It was just sitting there! It was begging to be chopped!
The axe instead ended up in Hanson’s non-punting shin.
Hanson bled all over the locker room floor, got medical attention, received some surgery, and would end up on IR for the year. If not for that fateful week 16 game where Saints kicker John Carney shanked the extra point, the only notable event of 2003 would be the Jaguars punter throwing himself into the conversation of dumbest injuries ever.
Hanson would be fine. He came back healthy the next season and punted for the Jags until 2007, when he would get cut and end up as the punter for the legendary 2007 Patriots. He got plenty of work in the Super Bowl that year, good for him. He would eventually punt his last ball in the 2009 season.
I have to wonder if the irrelevance of the 2003 Jaguars is the reason this injury is not better known.
It might take some more thought, but I’d have to rank it pretty highly in the pantheon of dumbest sports injuries. Right up there with Gus Frerotte concussing himself , Plaxico shooting himself, and Gramatica pulling his ACL apart celebrating a routine field goal. Also, lest it be forgotten, JPP’s fireworks incident.
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What about Antonio Brown’s frostbitten feet(TDP issue #954)?
Frostbite sure seems to be an injury, and that was most definitely dumb as heck(then again, it’s AB, nearly everything he does is dumb. Yet again, however, this was when he was just a diva and hadn’t devolved to mad clown level).
AB’s foot injury gets ignored because it felt deliberate, a way to get himself off the Raiders. He wasn’t going to shoot himself in the foot or leg because it would end his career, so he gave himself frostbite in a controlled manner. Still extremely stupid, but it wasn’t accidental. It was a continuation of his throwing tantrums to leave various teams.
I’m surprised Plaxico Burress wasn’t mentioned, though, for infamously shooting himself in the leg. That was a stupid accidental injury and a legendary one. It’s one of the most infamous dumb off-field injuries, and the guy lost a bunch of money and spent almost two years in prison because the gun was unregistered.
Dave mentioned Plaxico’s injury in the final paragraph. Even before I got into football, I knew of Plaxico Burress as the guy who shot himself in a nightclub.
Dumbest football injuries, maybe.
Baseball has a long and proud history of idiotic injuries. Including the guy that tried (and failed) to emulate a motivation speaker by ripping a phone book (remember those?) in half, and ended up hurting his arms. (The oft-repeated John Smoltz “ironed his shirt while wearing it” story is more fable than truth, sadly, because that was an all-timer when it was first reported)
Clint Barmes breaking his collarbone carrying deer meat up the stairs is the one I always remember
Hockey’s got Dustin Penner throwing out his back eating pancakes for breakfast.
you go back a ways in baseball history and you get the fat bastard pitcher who fell asleep in a wooden rocking chair and rocked over his own pitching hand
For a long time, Football Outsiders (RIP) had a weekly Keep Choppin’ Wood award for the player who did the most damage to his team, through poor play, off-field stupidity, or preferably both. A fine tradition.
Whenever a player does something stupid, I usually chalk that up to them being young and naive. Even if they do something moronic, the consequences are theirs to carry alone.
Coaches and leadership do not get that same allowance. When their mistakes harm others, they have double the blame to carry. Older, more experienced adults are supposed to be in charge of keeping the younger generation from harm.
Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio had a foot injury that threatened to postpone his rookie debut so the team doctors hooked him up to a diathermy machine. A diathermy machine uses ultrasonic waves to warm up muscle tissue to improve healing. When told to let them know when his foot got ‘too hot’ Joe DiMaggio took that as a challenge to his manhood and just gritted his way through it.
Yeah, the machine burned his foot. He wound up missing the start of the season anyway as the burns took a few weeks to heal.
Lamarr Houston tearing his ACL celebrating a sack while losing by 25 is probably worse than Gramatica due to the game situation, plus Tulloch had done the same thing about a month earlier mocking an insurance commercial after sacking Rodgers.
I also seem to remember Nate Burleson getting hurt in a car crash because he was trying to keep pizza from sliding off the seat.
Joseph Fauria of the Lions got a severe leg injury chasing his puppy that was peeing in 2014.