On Monday, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that linebacker Stephen Cooper would be placed on injured reserve with a torn biceps muscle, and Acee declared that Cooper’s Chargers career is over.
Cooper’s response? Not so fast.
Cooper plans to try to play with the injury that originally was going to knock him out for at least two or three months.
“I told them, ‘Let me go out there and do it,’” Cooper said Tuesday. “I said, ‘If you don’t feel like I’m doing my job or playing up to expectations, then you make the judgment.’”
Per Acee, Cooper could play this weekend against the Cardinals.
It’s not unprecedented for players to continue with a torn biceps. In 2003, for example, former Packers defensive tackle Gilbert Brown suffered that injury in the preseason. He started 14 regular-season games that year.
“There’s no pain or nothing. I just felt great,” Brown said after his first practice with the injury. “It felt good to be out there with my teammates.”
Ken Norton Jr. did the same thing in 1993, playing part of the year for the Cowboys with a torn biceps.