LLT
09-03-2012, 04:49 AM
Monday, September 03, 2012
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
His right eye looks so much better now. Last week, after the Steelers' preseason game against Buffalo, his eyeball appeared to be swimming in a sea of red. You have heard that play in the NFL trenches can be brutal? You have no idea. His helmet was driven down hard on his eye, rupturing a blood vessel.
"If that's the worst thing that happens to me this year," Willie Colon was saying the other day, "I'm good with it."
Colon will be at left guard when the Steelers open the season Sunday night in Denver. He didn't play in the playoff game there last season, just as he wasn't around for the team's run to Super Bowl XLV a season earlier. He missed all of the 2010 season after tearing an Achilles tendon in a summer workout. He made it through just one game last season before being shut down with a torn triceps.
"The first time I got hurt, it was a huge blow to the ego," Colon said. "I was really honing in at right tackle. I knew we were going to have a great team. I was comfortable with my role and ready to have a great year ...
"But the second time hurt me the most. You accept the fact in this game that everybody is going to have one major injury during their career. I figured [the Achilles] was mine. Let's get back to football and rock and roll. Then, it happened again. When they told me I was done for the year, I said, 'This is ridiculous. You're lying.' But they weren't lying. I was done again."
Read more: http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/12247/1258810-87.stm#ixzz25OmAZncK
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
His right eye looks so much better now. Last week, after the Steelers' preseason game against Buffalo, his eyeball appeared to be swimming in a sea of red. You have heard that play in the NFL trenches can be brutal? You have no idea. His helmet was driven down hard on his eye, rupturing a blood vessel.
"If that's the worst thing that happens to me this year," Willie Colon was saying the other day, "I'm good with it."
Colon will be at left guard when the Steelers open the season Sunday night in Denver. He didn't play in the playoff game there last season, just as he wasn't around for the team's run to Super Bowl XLV a season earlier. He missed all of the 2010 season after tearing an Achilles tendon in a summer workout. He made it through just one game last season before being shut down with a torn triceps.
"The first time I got hurt, it was a huge blow to the ego," Colon said. "I was really honing in at right tackle. I knew we were going to have a great team. I was comfortable with my role and ready to have a great year ...
"But the second time hurt me the most. You accept the fact in this game that everybody is going to have one major injury during their career. I figured [the Achilles] was mine. Let's get back to football and rock and roll. Then, it happened again. When they told me I was done for the year, I said, 'This is ridiculous. You're lying.' But they weren't lying. I was done again."
Read more: http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/12247/1258810-87.stm#ixzz25OmAZncK