Thirteen days ago this afternoon, the New England Patriots' Robert Edwards leapt to catch a pass amidst bracket coverage from Oakland defensive back Charles Woodson and the San Francisco 49ers' RW McQuarters.
The ball fell incomplete, but after the three National Football League rookies tumbled to the ground, only two of them got up. Slow-motion footage that has been replayed countless times over the past two weeks reveals that when Edwards came to earth, his left knee had turned one way in the sand, and his 218 lb body the other.
The knee positively exploded. Although emergency surgery was performed that evening in Hawaii, 13 days elapsed before the swelling subsided to the extent that the damage could be repaired. A four-hour operation performed in Boston on Tuesday confirmed that Edwards had not only suffered a complete dislocation of the knee, including severe damage to all four ligaments (three of which were torn), but significant artery and nerve injury as well.
The question this morning is not whether he will play again - even the Patriots' usually-bold team physician, Dr Bertram Zarins, confessed that he was "pessimistic about Edwards' ability to return to football" following the surgery - but whether he will be able to walk like a normal human being.
The spectre of a 24-year-old athlete being cut down at the dawn of a promising career would be lamentable under any circumstances, but in the case at hand it is nothing short of infuriating. The Patriots had played their final game on January 3rd, when they lost in the play-offs' wild card round at Jacksonville. The "game" in which Edwards was injured was not an official NFL match at all, but rather a silly, made-for-television game of flag football, played on Waikiki beach in Honolulu.
The Pro Bowl, which pits the AFC all stars against their counterparts from the NFC, is played in Hawaii a week following the league's championship, the Super Bowl. In recent years steps have been undertaken to expand it from a three-hour showcase of NFL talent to a week-long spectacle rivalling the Super Bowl itself.
The game in which Edwards was injured was sponsored not by the league itself, but by an adjunct called NFL Properties. The purpose was twofold: firstly, to surround the Pro Bowl with activities that might prove enticing to NFL sponsors as part of the week-long pageantry, and secondly, to provide fodder for the television network's (in this case, ABC's) weekend programming.
Edwards and all the other rookies were required to sign a waiver absolving NFL Properties of any responsibility in the case of injury.
The participants, including Edwards, were members of the NFL's 1998 crop of rookies, and were not Pro Bowl selections at all. Having been lured by the promise of a pair of first-class air tickets to Honolulu and a week in the sun, no one seems to have considered the possibility of tragic consequences.
Well, put it this way: neither Edwards nor the Patriots (who gave their blessing, and indeed, encouraged his participation) seem to have considered it. That it crossed the mind of somebody at NFL Properties, on the other hand, would seem evident enough from the fact that prior to taking part in the Beach Football game, Edwards and all the other rookies were required to sign a waiver absolving NFL Properties of any responsibility in the case of injury.
Lawyer Milloy (sic), Edwards' New England team-mate who was in Hawaii as a Pro Bowl participant, thinks the treacherous footing of the beach may have made it more conducive to injury.
"Any time you're doing something competitive like that, things can happen," said Milloy. "I played in that game my first year and it was tough playing in the sand. That may have had something to do with it. You see them playing and think it's nothing, but it's hard to get around in the sand." The episode brought to mind several similarly star-crossed off-field incidents in New England sports history.
Following the 1967 season in which he won the Cy Young Award as the American League's best pitcher, Jim Lonborg broke a leg in a skiing accident and never returned to form.
The once-proud Boston Celtics were effectively gutted for an entire generation by the deaths of their first-round draft choices in two successive years. Len Bias, the basketball team's top pick in 1986, expired of a cocaine overdose 24 hours after the team drafted him. Reggie Lewis, picked in the first round the next season, suffered a fatal heart attack while playing pick-up basketball several years later.
Faced with the almost certain end of Edwards' career, the Patriots now find themselves wrestling with the practical implications of that reality. Since the beach game was not an official NFL event, the league had no insurance policy on its participants. The Patriots have the option of refusing to pay Edwards the remaining balance of his $5.75 million five-year contract - a move which wouldn't be as hard-hearted as it would seem, since the contract was privately insured by the player's agent - but since the pact included a $2.48 million signing bonus, that figure would be prorated and would count against the team's already over-extended salary cap.
Replacing him on the field may be even more problematical. Edwards was selected out of Georgia in the first round of the 1998 draft, with a pick obtained from the New York Jets as compensation for signing his predecessor, Pro Bowl running back Curtis Martin. While Edwards did not exactly fill Martin's shoes, he was more than adequate, rushing for 1,115 yards and scoring 12 touchdowns in his first NFL season.
Two weeks ago this April's draft appeared promising for the Patriots, who hold two first-round picks. Now they may have to swap them both in an effort to move up and draft a running back who can step into the void.
None of which is of much comfort to Robert Edwards. Right now he lies in a hospital bed, wondering if he'll need a cane to get around for the rest of his life.
