It wasn’t a surprise that no long-term deal between franchised defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul and the New York Giants, especially since the team reportedly pulled any offer off the table last week.
Pierre-Paul injured himself and put his future NFL career on the rocks in the absolute dumbest way possible, by blowing his right index finger off in a fireworks accident on July 4. He also reportedly fractured his right thumb.
When the accident was first announced, there was an effort to play it down by the Pierre-Paul camp, even though they had to know while looking at his hamburger hand that the prospects of a lucrative five-to-seven-year deal was off the table. The injuries had to especially hurt today as Kansas City outside linebacker Justin Houston closed a 7-year, $101 million deal. It’s not hard to think that Pierre Paul could have easily gotten an 7-year $80 million contract today if he hadn’t been so damn stupid over Independence Day.
After all that, only Jason Pierre-Paul will play on the franchise tag this season, officially.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 15, 2015
Pierre-Paul and his people tried to hide the extent of his injuries from both the media and the Giants to no avail as ESPN’s Adam Schefter grabbed his deerstalker hat and calabash pipe and took a cell phone photo of Pierre-Paul’s medical chart, which was such a violation of Pierre-Paul’s HiPPA rights that the hospital has opened a full investigation.
Below is a statement from Carlos A. Migoya, president and CEO of Jackson Health System: “Late Wednesday, media reports…
Posted by Jackson Health System on Thursday, July 9, 2015
As for Pierre-Paul’s NFL future, the Giants aren’t ready to cut bait just yet and have left the franchise tender on the table that would pay him $14.8 million in 2015. As the 4 p.m. EST deadline passed Wednesday, Pierre-Paul now has no choice. He’ll either sign the tender or he won’t play football.
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His injury, though severe, doesn’t seem to be career ending. NFL Network reported he had pins put in his broken thumb and there’s no real report on how much of his index finger was amputated. Certainly a missing finger might make a little difference in Pierre-Paul’s grasping ability, but overall he should still be able to play. Guys play defensive end and tackle all the time with full casts, taped fingers, broken and dislocated fingers and hands. The Giants just want to see how effective Pierre-Paul is going to be. He’ll most likely miss all of training camp and could miss part of the regular season.
Pierre-Paul needs to pass a physical before he can sign the franchise tender for his own sake to stay off the Non Football-Related Injury list. If he gets put on that list, he’ll have to miss the first six games of the season and, more importantly for him, will not get paid.
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He’ll also come into this season with a lot to prove, not just to the Giants but to the rest of the NFL. Pierre-Paul will be an unrestricted free agent again next year, regardless of the kind of season he has with the Giants. At that point they can franchise him again or set him free. To cash in either way, he’ll have to prove he can play as well with nine fingers. Also, he needs to stay the hell away from fireworks.
https://twitter.com/BartHubbuch/status/619952705994420224
Pierre-Paul wouldn’t be the first NFL player to hit the field after an amputated finger. Former San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott had his left pinkie-finger amputated after suffering multiple breaks in 1986. Lott spoke about his own amputation and Pierre-Paul on Rich Eisen’s podcast last week.
“He (Pierre-Paul) will be able to play with it and he’ll learn how to deal with it,” Lott said. “But the moment of not seeing it, the moment of looking at your hand and looking down and realizing you have that phantom (finger), where you use your finger but you don’t see it, there’s a lot of things emotionally that he’ll have to deal with. He’ll have to learn how to understand that it’s not there and that there are things that will play tricks on his mind.”
. @RonnieLottHOF thinks JPP's biggest comeback hurdle may be more mental than physical…and he would know: http://t.co/NQGRDiyhew
— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) July 10, 2015
Tricks on his mind or now, if there’s any good that’s come out of this it’s that NFL teams will have “no fireworks” clauses to go along with the “no guns” and “no motorcycles” clauses they’ve been forced to put into past contracts because of past player stupidity.
