Linebacker Zaire Anderson found himself unable to move temporarily after he was knocked unconscious during the Denver Broncos’ season finale against the Oakland Raiders on New Year’s Day. He regained feeling throughout his body soon after and managed to avoid any significant bodily injury.
But despite the scare, Anderson isn’t re-assessing his desire to continue to play football.
“I feel like after it happened, it made me realize I just want to play football,” Anderson said, via Arnie Stapleton of the Associated Press. “It’s something I’ve been doing my whole life and I just know stuff like that happens to players but I just never thought it would happen to me. It happened and I’m just trying to move forward.”
Anderson compressed his spinal cord when his head rammed into a teammate’s hip trying to make a tackle on a punt. He was loaded onto a cart and taken to the hospital where he eventually began to regain feeling throughout his body. Anderson said having the season be over following the injury gave him the time he needed to mentally process his injury and get back in the right frame of mind to continue playing.
Now it’s a thing of the past for him.
“I really don’t dwell on it as much” he said. “I feel like it’s just something that happened that day and it just comes with the game.”
Anderson appeared in all 16 games with one start for Denver last season, recording 14 tackles and a forced fumbles.