Free-balling in the NFL

[Water Boy]

http://patriots.bostonherald.com/patriots/view.bg?articleid=158571

This little tidbit in Tomase's article on Logan Mankins and Denver's Ebenezer Ekuban blew me away. I guess I am niave, as I assumed that all players, with the exception of the kickers, would protect the family jewels. Does anyone know what percentage of players wear a cup? If a lot of players don't, this may explain those mystery injuries you see where a guy is doubled over on the field in intense pain, but is able to shake it off after a few series.

As for taking extra precautions against a known adversary, neither player sounded particularly concerned. Ekuban said he doesn’t even plan to wear a cup. “I won’t be able to run if I wear a cup,†he said. “But I might wear a jockstrap to see if it can absorb some of the treatment.â€

 

[PonyExpress]

Percentage of NFL players who wear cups: 0%

 

[Patriotic]

If the Pats know that Ekuban will not wear a cup Sunday night, we should put Randy Hand on our 53 and line him up opposite Ekuban. That'll give
Ekuban nightmares!

 

[DB15]

i would never wear a cup playing football, one time a teammate of mine was kicked in the nuts by accident buy another player, he was kicked so hard on of his balls blew up to the size of.... well twice what your nuts should be.

 

[Tunescribe]

Anyone who's ever tried wearing one of those damn things knows you can't run with it. The only athletes I'm aware of who wear a cup are baseball catchers.

 

[taltos]

I wore one catching, also wore one playing goalie in hockey. Couldn't skate worth a damn with it on, but the boys felt much safer.

 

[DB15]

Anyone who's ever tried wearing one of those damn things knows you can't run with it. The only athletes I'm aware of who wear a cup are baseball catchers.

every hockey player wears one

 

[Pawn512]

Having played football through the college level, I can tell you that probably 20% of players at most wear cups. The most frequent wearers are centers who don't wear it for protection, but as a courtesy to the quarterback. In all my playing time I never saw an injury involving getting hit in the balls.

 

[Tunescribe]

Having played football through the college level, I can tell you that probably 20% of players at most wear cups. The most frequent wearers are centers who don't wear it for protection, but as a courtesy to the quarterback. In all my playing time I never saw an injury involving getting hit in the balls.

Back in the mid-'70s a Chicago Bears defensive back, Virgil Livers, suffered a ruptured testicle during a game.

 

[PatsDeb]

As a chick, I had no idea what the title of this thread meant when I saw it! To quote Elaine Benes from Seinfeld, "I don't know how you guys walk around with those things."

PS - Virgil must have had to change his name after his injury (ouch).

 

[mgcolby]

I could never wear a cup due to not being able to run and my son's youth football league requires that the kids wear a cup at all times. I feel bad for the kid because he runs like he just took a dump in his pants.

 

[Mike the Brit]

As a chick, I had no idea what the title of this thread meant when I saw it! To quote Elaine Benes from Seinfeld, "I don't know how you guys walk around with those things."

PS - Virgil must have had to change his name after his injury (ouch).

The Australians call it the Squirrel Grip -- Australian Rules Football involves a LOT of overhead catches. I couldn't find a picture of it being applied there but this soccer one never gets old (the victim has signed the print!):

 

[T-ShirtDynasty]

Asante got racked last year, made a dive at a thrown ball or a player, can't remember, landed on the ground weird with his body kind of arched so the hips area made contact with the ground first and came up cluctching his boys. *ouch*

Like mgcolby, my kid has to wear one in his high school football league, poor kid has chafe marks after every practice from running.

 

[Oswlek]

I have read that, in addition to impediing fluid motion, cups can actually cause more harm than they protect. Fall down wrong and the side will jam into your groin, or worse, smush a loose nut that happened to meander its way between the cup and groin.

 

[FSUPatsFan]

Yeah, I'm not sure any football players wear cups. If you ever see a wide reciever dive or land on another player and then hunch over after the play, its not because "he got the wind knocked out of him" as most announcers say. 9 times out of 10 its because he got his manhood knocked up into his stomach. All hockey players wear cups. And i'm sure all baseball infielders do, not just catchers. Pitchers get hit in the face regularly, I'm sure they wear cups. Balls (no pun intended) take bad hops all the time. I played baseball in high school and our coach made everyone wear cups. He would randomly tap us in the cup with a bat just to make sure. Lets just say you never got caught without a cup more than once.