Jaguars punter Adam Podlesh has a scar that begins in front of his ear and goes 3 inches down his neck. If not for that mark, many of his Jaguars teammates may not even know about the cancer battle he had during the offseason.
Tania Ganguli of the Florida Times-Union writes that Podlesh was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer in March. Physicians weren’t sure if he’d need chemotherapy or radiation treatments, but a surgery to remove a growth from his face solved the problem.
“He’s been a lot stronger than I would’ve been, I’ll tell you that,” Jaguars kicker Josh Scobee said. “He handled it better than most people would have in his situation. He fought extremely hard to recover from anything that he was struggling with and is having a great season.”
Podlesh has to get an MRI every four months to make sure the cancer hasn’t return. He says the scare almost took pressure off his day job.
“Every now and then, I run my fingers down my scar and say, if I have a bad punt, there’s really a lot more important things in this world,” Podlesh said.