Christopher Simms, the son of former NFL great Phil Simms (who I once served him grilled on wheat bread with olives, no manure) and current quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, suffered a horrific injury recently in a close loss. the Carolina Panthera. This got me thinking, not so much about Chris Simms and whether he’ll be okay, but about NFL injuries in general…and this very secret organ of ours: the spleen. First, some words on Mr. Spleen…
When the news broke of Chris Simms’ injury and emergency splenectomy, I did what most Americans did: I googled “spleen.” I just wanted to understand what hell was and what it was doing. Strangely enough, I had no such interest in this topic when my spleen was on fire a few years ago (horrific press with mono). But now I was of the spleen. If they crack the spleen and I’m a crack junkie for a day, well…
Then it comes: the spleen is quite superfluous. I mean, it’s as redundant as any organ that can be removed without causing death (above the appendix and right below one kidney for that matter). It is not like the liver or the heart. If Spleen was a character in ‘Happy Fathers Day’ it would be Potsy.
What was more disturbing that until recently we did not even know the spleen? How could this happen? In a day and age when so many things are possible, medically speaking, how do we go so long without understanding what one of our organs has done? Here I did not even want the spleen. I am getting ready to sell on Ebay.
So I started thinking about other weird NFL injuries to take my mind off the hatred of the spleen. And guess what, nothing really comes to mind. I couldn’t think of a stranger NFL injury than Chris Simms exploding spleen. And I think this is good. For a sport as intense as football, you would think that strange things would happen. Aside from the occasional case of paralysis, there really isn’t a whole lot going on. Turf toe? I don’t even know what it is. In a way, it’s good that this happened to Chris Simms. Because instead of being known as Phil Simms’ kid, he would be recognized as the one who sung half of an NFL game With a ruptured spleen. And whatever anyone says, there is dignity in it.
