As MDS pointed out Friday, the Lions are dealing with injuries both to kicker Jason Hanson and punter Ryan Donahue. Hanson, who is listed as probable for Sunday at Chicago, has a left knee injury that he suffered during the bye week.
How did he do it? Hanson isn’t saying much about it.
“I don’t think I was being an idiot,” Hanson said, via Chris McCosky of the Detroit News, which perhaps should be the subtitle of the next Jackass movie.
Now that we’ve established Hanson isn’t an idiot, his explanation of an injury that apparently had something to do with an ATV was a little, shall we say, idiotic.
“To say that it was an ATV conveys something that it’s not,” Hanson said. “I’m not even sure what classifies as an all-terrain vehicle. But I was not out riding a four-wheeler and goofing around when this happens. I was with my kids, so as far as the other details, I don’t feel like sharing.”
In other words, I wasn’t being an idiot, and you’ll have to just take my word for it.
“The risk factor for what I was doing is about one or two,” Hanson said. “I mean, I’m angry. This is an important week, but I also just throw my hands up in the air -- what can you do?”
What the Lions did was try to see if Donahue could add placekicking to punting. And Donahue became the next domino to fall, suffering a strained quad while trying to kick field goals.
The Donahue injury prompted the Lions to bring in three punters for workouts: Matt Dodge, Glenn Pakulak, and Robert Malone. The Lions signed Malone.
“It’s terrible timing,” Hanson said. “I can’t believe it happened and I feel super sorry. It really is a terrible week for this to happen. But my guilt level is pretty low. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything irresponsible or putting myself at any risk.”
So Hanson says the risk factor was one or two, but Hanson also says he wasn’t putting himself at any risk. It sounds like he knows in his heart that whatever he was doing he shouldn’t have been doing. If he hadn’t been doing it, the risk factor would have been zero, and it’s not unreasonable for a team that pays a guy to use his body to expect the guy to take as much care of it as possible during the season.