What would you do?

[Reckoner]

Scenario:

Say you're a professional football player, and your team has just made its way to the Super Bowl. You're the star defensive player on the team, and your impact is big enough to sway a game into your team's direction. However, you have a slight hamstring tear which could lead to a career ending injury if you're hit the wrong way.

With football and it's lack of guaranteed contracts, would you take the chance to help your team win it all, or take care of yourself first?

 

[Fausto]

Play. Since I'm not a retard who would have blown all his cash on Spinnahs, I could retire comfortably regardless of my health at game's end.

 

[rudder]

Play, because I would have a Brian Bosworth type contract.

 

[yoda291]

If I was injured, I'd not play. I don't much care for football anyways, so I wouldn't really care if I had a super bowl ring or not.

 

[Ryan]

You only have one body, d00d.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

If I'm in year 12 of my Pro Footbal career, PLAY!

If I havent seen Tens of Millions yet, Don't Play!

 

[CPA]

That's what insurance is for.

 

[Quixfire]

I would play because I invested my earnings.

 

[gigapet]

steroids + vicodin

 

[Yossarian]

I would confer with my ambassador of qua.

 

[Argo]

Not to ruin your question, but as a former defensive back - even if you have the slightest tear of the hammstring, you wouldn't be very effective in the game. The best thing to do is sit it out.

Edit: since everybody else has a different opinion on this, I'd expand. If you have a slight hamstring tear your speed would be at 80% in the best case scenario. For a defensive back, that means wide receivers will be running by you all the time. Randy Moss had a similar injury last yer (his was a pull, not a tear) and the only reason he played was to be a decoy. As a defensive player, you cannot be a decoy, since you need to be able to cover. So the only thing you'd do by playing is hurt the team and yourself. I played with a slightly pulled hamstring once, gave up 2 TDs in the first half at which point coach yanked me out of the game.

 

[Sukhoi]

Why would a slight hamstring tear lead to a career ending injury?

 

[yoda291]

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Why would a slight hamstring tear lead to a career ending injury?

I imagine it could lead to a not-so-slight hamstring tear?

 

[jjones]

I'd play because I'd have to take a shot at getting a ring.

 

[blackdogdeek]

i'd play.

if i were worried about career-ending injuries, i wouldn't be playing football.

 

[PingSpike]

What's the NFL minimum? 650k/year? If I'm a star then I'm probably making 5 times that. I should be set whether I ruin my leg or not. Might as well go for it.

 

[Toasthead]

I would play...If tyou are a star...youve probably got a 8-9 million singing bonus and this type of game is that they gave that to you for. It not like Id be in the poor house.

 

[Miramonti]

Play.

Altho the risk of further injury would be real, the risk of it being career ending is little greater than one from a non-pre-existing injury anyways. That's the way athletics is especially football, you never can know and there are no guarantees. Ever.

 

[J Heartless Slick]

I would take care of myself and my family.

That is probably easy for me to say because I have not played football since I was 7 and it is not the most important thing in my life.

But I would not want to be functionally disabled at age 28.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: yoda291

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
Why would a slight hamstring tear lead to a career ending injury?

I imagine it could lead to a not-so-slight hamstring tear?

Or possibly a really quite excrutiating and never fully healing tear, but that's just crazy talk...