July 17th, 2012 
Jeremy Fuchs 
Posted in Linval Joseph is a tough dude. The ankle injury he played with last season was much worse then let on. As he told Mike Garafolo in a back-and-forth conversation:
How much was that ankle bothering you last year?
It was numb. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a numb foot before. It bothered me a lot.
For the whole season?
The second half of the season. I just sucked it up, finished out the season and won the Super Bowl. It was worth it.
I don’t recall you being on the injury report at all.
I didn’t say anything about it during the season. I told the trainers once in a while, but I didn’t say a lot about it.
How did the injury affect you?
Let me give you an example. It’s like your leg is asleep when you’re walking. That’s what it feels like. But when it’s numb for a certain amount of time, you learn how to play with it. You adapt to it.
We all know how annoying it is to have your foot fall asleep. It’s kinda painful. Now, imagine playing football with it? I can barely walk when my foot is asleep. Can’t even imagine running, stopping, cutting. Kudos to Joseph. Now that he’s healthy, we can only imagine an even better year.
Hopefully he’ll get an hearful from the staff.
You don’t just have a numb leg for 4 months for no reason.
What if it’s the symptom of something more serious, or even dangerous ?
I always say the team that wins the super bowl is not always the best team. It is the team that can play at the highest level with all their injured players. By that time almost every player is hurt with multiple injuries. The team that has the toughest players that can suck it up and focus on doing their job will win. The Giants are a tough team and that’s the way they’re designed to be.
Having a 16 game season is a little crazy, the idea of the NFL going to 18 games was ludicrous. By the 16th game everybody is hurt and nursing injuries. That’s why I feel strongly that having groups of good players is better than having one great one. The way the NFL is you need rotations to keep people healthy. I would rather have 3 very good players at certain positions than one great one and 2 scrubs. It’s very bad to invest too much into one player and not have the cap space to sign other players. It might be great for the fans to have a lot of stars but reality says to win it’s not.
Yes you need some true star players but only a few. Let it be a QB, maybe one offensive player at a skilled position and one or two defensive players that really make plays, like a pass rusher and a shut down corner. The rest of the team should be good solid NFL professionals that do their job and play tough.
Another issue is to bring those young players along so that toward the end of the season they are ready to play. You have some young fresh players who are not hurt and can play at a high level, maybe they are just a little faster or quicker than the tried injured players on most teams. It can win you a few games at the end of the season for sure, that can mean the difference between going to the playoffs or not. To do that they must get snaps early in the season so they can be ready by then.
I think one reason Chase Blackburn played so well was because he was not injured and was not tired, he was fresh. It showed what a fresh healthy player can do by that time of the season.
Sadly I don’t think they abandoned the idea of an 18 game season.
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An incredible story. It’s all hindsight now, though, so the important question — one I didn’t see asked or answered — is how the foot is now? Was it treated in the off-season? Is the problem likely to reoccur?
He’ll probably always have issues with the foot. It might be OK and during the season at some time he will have some issues. That’s when they talk about managing the injury, it’s all about rest and rehab.
All players play with injuries, they tough it out. Some players like Bradshaw played with fractures in his feet. One player years ago played in a playoff game with fractureded leg, they taped it up and he went out and played. His name is Jack Youngblood and he played for the Rams.
Some players have a hang nail and can’t play. That’s why Reese mentions toughness when talking about players.