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Samuels not ready to hang up jersey--yet PRO FOOTBALL
Redskins' Samuels ponders his future
Date published: 11/25/2009
BY RICH CAMPBELL LANDOVER, Md. --There's an ongoing debate inside Chris Samuels' mind. It's not a new or unique dilemma. Football players for decades have measured their need to preserve their health against their desire to play the game. But now, it's Samuels' turn to face his NFL mortality.He is still waiting for more information about his ailing neck, so his quandary will linger into the winter. But as the Washington Redskins' longtime left tackle contemplates his career and what awaits him after it, he has found a peace that will ease his transition whenever he decides to retire. "At this point, I haven't started to put my career in the past tense," Samuels said yesterday at the team's annual Thanksgiving charity event at FedEx Field. "I'm still optimistic about playing again. But one thing about it, I'm not fearful." Samuels, 32, is considering retirement because he suffered a serious neck injury during the Redskins' loss against Carolina on Oct. 11. Carolina defensive end Tyler Brayton bull-rushed Samuels on the fourth play of the game, and the two knocked heads. The collision seemed innocuous, the type that occurs hundreds of times in NFL stadiums each week. But Samuels dropped to the ground as his body went numb. The head-to-head contact snapped his head back, and that was injurious because of his longstanding spinal stenosis. He described that condition as two or three discs in his neck that grew too tightly around his spinal cord. When his head snapped back, some nerves were pinched. "I knew it was bad even though I've been through it before," Samuels said. "Anytime you get hit and everything kind of goes numb on you, it's pretty serious. Once I saw the doctors, they told me it was pretty serious, as well." So now Samuels waits. The Redskins ended his season by placing him on injured reserve, and he has been relegated to a cheerleader role while his fellow linemen have struggled without him. In the meantime, the considerable tingling and numbness that plagued him for three weeks after the hit have subsided. Now he experiences only rare tingling sensations. Doctors will re-evaluate him this winter and opine whether he can safely continue playing.
Date published: 11/25/2009
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