Early in his long, productive NFL career, running back Fred Taylor was labeled “Fragile Freddy” because he missed time with injuries in several seasons.
No player who lasts 13 years as a running back in the NFL truly deserves that label and Taylor seems like a particularly bad fit for it based on a series of tweets he posted on Wednesday. Taylor said he had a full orthopedic exam last week that included “11 MRIs and 12 X-rays” and wrote that “somehow I played career with fractured clavicle, 2 partially torn labrum, one in each shoulder.”
Taylor writes that he has experienced “a sensation” in his shoulders for many years that he thought was just fatigue, but now believes were either missed or ignored by the doctors he saw while playing 11 years with the Jaguars and two with the Patriots.
Seems the "neutral doctors" we are referred to by the league overlooked the injuries and issues I currently deal with. Nice job guys
— Fred Taylor (@FredTaylorMade) August 31, 2016
There’s more on Taylor’s timeline, including Taylor’s assertion that he’s been turned down for “Line of Duty” benefits --"substantial disablement arising out of NFL football activities” -- three times by the league.
There’s nothing overly surprising about Taylor’s claims as plenty of others have wondered about team doctors’ allegiances to teams over players when it comes to keeping guys on the field. Those benefits would seem to be designed for players like Taylor even if their injuries were all accurately diagnosed during their careers, however, which is likely why Taylor writes that his goal is “to start a convo on how to avoid this happening to other players.”