Shouldn't We Applaud Merriman

Mamba · Sep 10, 2008

I always had a soft spot for Shawne Merriman during the two seasons that I covered the University of Maryland football team for The Sun. Shawne was stubborn and proud, emotional and funny. He rubbed a few people the wrong way, including a handful of teammates, because he never shied away from attention. He understood, better than most athletes, why it was important to have a good rapport with the media. (Players weren't supposed to give out their cell numbers. He gave me his anyway.) But as far as I know, no one ever questioned his heart. He wanted to be an NFL star, obviously, and he wanted to get paid like one. But he was, first and foremost, a Terp.

So I wasn't surprised to hear, prior to the start of the NFL season, that he was going to try and play this year despite the fact that four doctors told him he needed surgery on his knee. It was typical Shawne, believing he's mentally tough enough to deal with anything, even when it flies in the face of reason. What was surprising, however, was people's reaction to Shawne's decision to try and gut it out.

Foolhardy. Selfish. Idiot. Those are a few of the tamer words I saw tossed around in reaction to his decision. The squawking songbirds on talk radio couldn't get over the idea that Shawne might be risking millions of dollars by playing hurt. If he ever wanted to land a big contract again -- his current deal is up after next season -- he needed to shut it down and start rehabbing now.

(This is probably the best place for the obligatory mention of steroids, since Merriman tested positive two seasons ago, claiming he'd taken a tainted supplement. Frankly, I've always thought it was ridiculously naive for people to believe that the NFL is mostly clean, and that Merriman is one of the bad guys for allegedly being on the juice. I think it's far more likely that half the league is using hGH or steroids, and deep down, we don't really want to know about it because we like watching 6-foot-4, 272-pound guys like Merriman run a 4.6 and hit like a train. It's almost laughable that the NFL was floating the idea that it might add two regular-season games, and then lost arguably its best offensive player in Tom Brady and its best defensive player in Merriman in Week 1. If the league wants to play an 18-game schedule, they might as well start handing out Stanzobol protein shakes at training tables, because steroids are about the only way you could keep players on the field throughout the season.)

It seems, sometimes, like a lose-lose for professional athletes these days. If they don't attempt to play through pain, we call them soft and claim that, for millions of dollars, we'd play on one leg if we had to. We compare them to the legends of yesterday and lament the modern players lack of toughness. "Jack Youngblood played with a broken leg!" we scream. Merriman's own teammate, LaDainian Tomlinson, saw his toughness questioned when he injured his knee and couldn't play in the second half of last year's AFC championship game. The other day, I heard a caller on WNST suggest that Troy Smith's tonsil infection never would have kept Johnny Unitas from missing a game, because Unitas was tough and today's players were coddled. (Never mind that Smith was in a hospital bed for a week being pumped full of antibiotics, and was so sick he lost 10 pounds.)

If they do grit it out, trying to play because they want to be a part of the team even if it means risking further injury, we shake our heads and call them fools. How could Terrell Owens play in the Super Bowl with a broken ankle? How could he risk all those future paychecks? How could Shawne Merriman be so dumb?

Merriman ultimately made the right choice, for himself and the Chargers, even though he played fairly well in San Diego's loss to the Panthers Sunday. There was no financial incentive for him to keep playing, because even if he did make it through the season on one leg, he'd still have to have surgery, probably missing all of next year. And with his contract expiring after the season, no one was going to give millions to a player who hadn't played in eight months.

I don't know for sure, since we haven't talked in a few years (though I'm tempted to give that old cell phone number a try) what went into his decision, but I want to believe Merriman felt like he owed it to his teammates to give it shot before shutting it down. We often want to believe the worst about professional athletes, that they're greedy and don't care about much outside their next contract, because it's easy to be cynical. You're not let down that way.

But I think the truth is far more gray. Maybe Shawne Merriman wanted to keep playing football this year because that's his passion. Maybe he wanted a shot at a Super Bowl ring.

Maybe, in the end, the decision was never ours to make.
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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/lifeofkings/2008/09/shouldnt_we_applaud_shawne_mer.html

My sentiments, exactly. He tried gutting it out for his team, but in the end, he made the right decision. See you next year, Shawne!

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Shouldn't We Applaud Merriman

Mamba The King is Back Staff Member Global Moderator

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Shouldn't We Applaud Merriman

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