GIVING ‘EM THE FINGER

One of the grossest things I have heard in sports happened this past week. It is right up there with the Lawrence Taylor hit that broke Joe Theisman’s leg, the Jason Kendall stepping on first base wrong, ankle bone popping thru his skin and flopping about, and the Kevin Ware leaping to block a shot and landing awkwardly, breaking a leg that popped out as well. What really makes this a mad gross out is the circumstances and the discovery of it.

Last weekend, the Arizone Cardinals were playing the Saints. Safety Rashad Johnson was playing on special teams, and attempted to make a tackle on a kick return. At that point, the tip of his middle finger snapped off inside his glove. At least that is the best guess, looking back at the game film. Johnson says he honestly doesn’t know when it happened. That’s bizarre.

What we do know is that at some point during the game, Johnson peeled off his playing glove and, oops, realized that the tip of his middle finger was in the glove, separated from the rest of his finger, along with, presumably, a decent amount of blood. AWWWW>>>>EEEUUUUGHHHH!!!

The finger apparently was too mangled to reattach, so Johnson went into the locker room and the training staff reportedly just gave him a little “finger tourniquet” and saved the rest of his finger. There is no truth to the rumor that they gave the severed finger back to Johnson, who then threw it at the Saints the next time he was on the field, which would have given new meaning to the term, “giving the opponent the finger”.

Either way, Johnson is becoming a huge hit on twitter, where he tweeted pictures of the finger, which now looks about the same length as his index and third fingers. He obviously also has the utmost respect from his peers on the gridiron. He is a football player!

I can’t even imagine doing something where I get the tip of my finger ripped off, and not ever realize when it happened. Then, going in the locker room and getting it treated like a normal person putting on a band aid.

Rashad Johnson has my respect for sure–what a stud!