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Anyone who makes a living as a professional athlete is going to end up dealing with an injury at some point, and many of them will end up playing through ailments that would keep the average person off their feet for weeks. That includes Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., who only missed a single game during the 2024 NFL season despite breaking his back before it started.
I’d argue hockey players tend to have the highest tolerance for pain given the many instances where we’ve ended up learning someone was able to shrug off a broken bone or a torn ligament to give their team the best chance of winning, but there’s also no shortage of Football Guys who’ve displayed a superhuman ability to overcome similar adversity.
For example, Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke led his team to the College Football Playoff despite tearing his ACL before the season got underway, but he’s not the only football player who refused to let a seemingly debilitating injury stop them from taking the field in 2024.
Michael Pittman Jr. inked a three-year, $71.5 million deal with the Indianapolis Colts ahead of his fifth season with the team that selected him with the 34th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and the wide receiver did take a small step back with his worst showing since his rookie campaign.
Pittman snagged 109 passes for 1,152 yards while scoring four touchdowns in 2023, but those numbers respectively fell to 69, 808, and 3 during the 16 games he suited up for the squad that finished at 8-9.
In November, we learned Pittman was nursing a back injury that sidelined him when the Colts faced off against the Bills (the only game he missed this year), but according to The Indianapolis Star, he and the team were severely understating the nature of that ailment based on what he had to say after their season came to an end.
Pittman said he was dealing with some pain in the preseason before an X-ray taken in the wake of their win over the Bears in Week 3 revealed he’d fractured his back, noting:
“When I first had it happen, they said that it’s almost certainly going to get worse, not better. It’s all about as long as I could make it happen, and I did finish… I was hoping we would be playing longer than this.”
We were doing [scans] every four weeks, but then I just got to a point I’m like, ‘I don’t really care what the scan says, I’m going to play either way,’”
It appears surgery is still on the table in the offseason, and Pittman says he’ll likely make a decision on that front in the near future in the hopes of being fully healed by the time the Colts get back in action.