Antonio Gates
GAMES MISSED: 9
After missing no more than one game in six straight seasons, Antonio Gates finally met an opponent he couldn’t defeat: Plantar fasciitis.
“You’re literally standing there 15-20 minutes, knowing that first step is going be to like an ice pick sticking in your foot,” Gates said, via USA TODAY Sports, about getting out of bed in the morning.
In fact, it got so bad that Gates, who had only just turned 30, was wondering if he could even continue playing football.
“I just couldn’t play sometimes,” he said. “And sometimes, the only way I could play was to take injections (of painkillers). I contemplated retiring. I didn’t think I could keep going like that.”
And you would too when, as Gates described to ESPN, it felt like “slicing a hot knife through butter.”
