Titans receiver Marc Mariani, who suffered a gruesome leg injury last week, says that when he looked down and saw the compound fracture of his tibia and fibula he immediately wondered if it was career ending.
“It was a scared feeling of, ‘this could be it.’ Your mind immediately goes to, ‘is this the last play I’ll ever play? Is this the end of my career?’ ” Mariani said, via Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean. “That was kind of my worry from the get-go.”
Mariani said his teammates urged him not to look down, but he did, and he saw was his left ankle “just kind of hanging there.” Seeing how bad it looked, his biggest worry was that his mom was watching the game on TV.
“When I got in the ambulance, that’s the first thing I did — I called my mom,” Mariani said. “That’s the only thing I could think about, and she was obviously distraught and in a panic. I tried to calm her down and let her know it was going to be all right.”
Now Mariani begins a long recovery, but one that he believes will have him playing for the Titans in 2013.
“I am going to have full optimism and full confidence that it’s going to be back 100 percent,” Mariani said. “My plan is to get back on the field.”
Here’s hoping Mariani’s rehab goes according to plan, and that play was not the last play of his NFL career.