There’s tough. There’s crazy. And then there’s Taylor Decker.
The Detroit Lions left tackle proved he’s a fantastic combination of both of those traits. Decker admitted to playing through an acute case of appendicitis.
Decker told the “Pardon My Take” Podcast this week that he toughed out his way through appendicitis at the start of the 2020 season.
Yeah, really.
Decker related that he had just signed his contract extension and did not want to be perceived as someone who couldn’t play after the payday. So he dealt with it.
“I woke up in the middle of the night sweating, shivering. My stomach hurt so bad and I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on. Am I constipated? Did I have too much Jet’s Pizza?’,”, Decker told the astonished hosts.
He played through the season opener in 2020 against the Chicago Bears and never told anyone on the team about his issue. He finally relented the following Wednesday and saw the Lions’ training staff.
“They’re like, yeah — you have appendicitis. You’ve had it for a week. You should have told us this sooner,” Decker said.
The Lions line fixture said the trainers gave him antibiotics and he played through the pain. It went away after about a month, Decker stated.
Interestingly, Decker never had the appendix taken out. It could, theoretically, happen to him again.
