-Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. Marcus Aurelius-
There were no OTAs last season. There wasn’t a training camp. There was nothing to acclimate a new quarterback to his new team. Then in week four, O.J. Howard aka ‘The Juice’, one of the major cogs in the offense, goes down. Down and out for the rest of the season. Howard was the team’s premier tight end. Gronkowski, who had just arrived, had not played professional football in over a year. He was not expected to have a major role in the beginning of the season. He was forced to step in and the offense sputtered.
That is an indication of what O.J. Howard brings to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A big guy who can block, a big guy that can run and a big guy that can catch. Howard should be in the Gronkowski, Kelce, Kittles, Waller conversation. But in his 1st four years in the league he has missed 20 games due to injury. He probably was not totally healthy in most of the games he played. The NFL stands for the National Football League. But it also stands for ‘Not For Long’. The average career of an NFL player, if your name is not Tom Brady, is 3.3 years. Howard has missed almost 2 years of football games. His body is for the most part fresh and not banged up after 4 years in the league. Howard needs to make an impact in the next five years to be remembered.
When a pitcher comes back from Tommy John surgery they are usually stronger. They throw harder than they did before the surgery. Here is to hoping that same formula works for Howard. That the time away from the game also gave him time to improve in all areas physically and mentally. With Howard at his best, Gronk returning to form and Brate to back them up. Tom Brady has the best tight end squad in the NFL. Which will then come to stand for the ‘Not Fair League’