Can Jayden Daniels Survive the Body-Horror of His Grotesque Elbow?
Saints preserve us. What fresh hell is this?
Since the beginning of the draft process, I've been fixated on the Patriots landing Jayden Daniels with the No. 3 pick. I plan on diving deeper into the prospects beginning next week. But what is there not to like about this guy? He's got tons of experience. Is coming off arguably the best statistical season by a QB in BCS history. He outran SEC defensive backs. Graded off-the-charts with his accuracy on deep balls. He could stand to add some muscle, but that won't be hard on his frame. Frankly, it's been hard to find much in the way of flaws.
That is, until now.
What on God's green Earth is that joint between his shoulder and wrist on his throwing arm? I'm no orthopedic surgeon, but you don't have to be to see that is not a human elbow.
It looks like Pride Rock:
Or a section of Iron Man's suit:
Part of a suit of armor:
The head of a xenomorph, perhaps:
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What it doesn't look like is the hinge joint on an arm you're going to entrust a No. 3 pick, $34 million, and the future of your franchise in. Your QB's elbow should go unnoticed. The ultimate seen-and-not-talked about body part. Just his olecranon, cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), the lateral and medial epicondyles of his humerus (h/t Wikipedia) all acting in sweet harmony with one another to effortlessly throw his targets open through narrow windows with tight spirals. This looks like a screenshot of one of those career-ending pitcher injuries, like Dave Dravecky or Tony Saunders:
I say again, so there's no confusion: I'm not a doctor. Sure, I crushed those mandatory CPR training sessions when I worked for the MA Trial Court. (And my moments of leaving over the dummy that was nothing but a torso and a head and saying, "This was no boating accident!" are the stuff of legend.) But medical school was never in my future. Still, someone claiming to be a doctor replied to Rapoport's post to claim this situation is not as hideous at it appears:
‘Banging’ your elbow against a hard surface often results in inflammation of the bursa, causing the body to fill it with fluid. This is a protective mechanism to prevent fracturing the bone underneath. These are VERY common, and more annoying than concerning. As long as they are not infected. These can be drained (aspirated) with a needle, but often these will fill back up. I’ve had good success with injecting PRP (plasma from the blood) to make these go away permanently.
So it's nothing? Just Daniels smacking his funny bone? And as a result it looks like a compound fracture like Dalton just snapped someone's arm in half after he pulled a knife at the Double Deuce (I'm sticking with the original for this reference)? Well, OK then. Thanks to the last four years of absolute wrongness on the internet, I try to avoid taking medical advice from social media. But if this doctor says so, I guess it's nothing.
I'll admit I'm still a little leery of taking a quarterback whose arm will go distorted any time he bangs it on a granite countertop. But if it scares Washington off of him and he falls to the Patriots, then this could be the most fortunate case of inflammation of the bursa in the history of the franchise.
So there's nothing to see here, other than ordinary, garden-variety grossness. Now someone give this thing it's own account already.