https://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/2018/11/wr_bruce_ellington_is_starting.html
WR Bruce Ellington is starting for the Lions without one of his hamstring muscles
By Kyle Meinke
Receiver Bruce Ellington has gone from the street to the Lions' starting lineup in a matter of weeks. (Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)
ALLEN PARK -- Bruce Ellington's stay in San Francisco was derailed by a hamstring injury. His stay in Houston was derailed by a hamstring injury. So he was asked this week, naturally enough, whether the hamstring is full recovered now that he's in Detroit.
And it produced a very unnatural response.
"I don't know if it's fully recovered," he said, "because they removed it. So I don't have it anymore."
Hold up. Um, what?
"It's the semitendinosus," Ellington said. "That muscle they took away."
For those without a medical degree, let me Google that for you. The semitendinosus turns out to be one of three hamstring muscles. It's located at the back of the thigh, and works to flex the knee and extend the hip.
Which, you know, seem kind of important for walking, let alone playing in the NFL. Yet here Ellington is, starting at receiver for this injury-riddled Lions offense a matter of weeks after signing here.
"I'll be all right," he said.
You can jump?
"I still can jump," he said. "I can still dunk."
You can't throw a rock in the NFL without hitting someone who can dunk. But doing it at 5-foot-9 is another matter, and doing it at 5-foot-9 without a piece of one of your hamstrings is another matter entirely.
"All vert," said Ellington, who originally enrolled at South Carolina to play basketball before moving on to football. "I got a video on my phone. I'll show it to you later."
That, he did. He also explained the story behind the missing hamstring parts.
Ellington felt something go in his left leg while returning a punt during the preseason in 2016. He looked down, and saw a ball above his knee. It was his hamstring. It had torn.
The standard treatment is to repair the hamstring in surgery, but team doctors told him his injury would likely produce scar tissue the rest of his career. That would put him at great risk for re-injury. So instead, they suggested removing the muscle all together.
"I was like, 'What?'" Ellington said. "It freaked me out."
The procedure is rare, but not without precedent. Former Texans great Andre Johnson had it done, then proceeded to post the best season of his career. So Ellington rolled with it.
It never worked out for him in San Francisco, as Chip Kelly was canned before Ellington had a chance to return to the field, then incoming coach Kyle Shanahan never gave him that chance before moving on.
He wound up in Houston last year, where he caught 29 passes for 330 yards and two touchdowns in 11 games. But the hamstring gave him some problems, then aggravated it again after three games this year. Houston put him on injured reserve, then cut him loose after four weeks.
The Lions, meanwhile opened the season well stocked at receiver. But then they traded top wideout Golden Taint to Philadelphia last month, which left a major void at the position. So they signed Ellington to join the committee trying to replace Taint -- and then they lost Marvin Jones to an injury too, ending his season.
So Ellington went from his couch in Houston on Nov. 5, to signed by the Lions on Nov. 6, to the Lions' starting lineup on Nov. 18. He caught six passes for 52 yards in a win against Carolina that day, then another six passes for 28 yards in the Thanksgiving loss against Chicago.
He barely came off the field that day, playing 81.8 percent of the offensive snaps. He's effectively become the Lions' No. 2 receiver because of the glut of turnover and lack of productivity at the position, where just Kenny Golladay is left from the opening day starting lineup.
And Ellington is embracing that opportunity, missing body parts and all.
"Definitely a guy that has made the most of his opportunity and produced," Lions coach Matt Patricia said. "We'll just keep going that way with it. I think he's done a good job. He's still obviously learning a lot about our offense and a lot about what we do, so it's all a little bit new to him, but we expect that to continue to grow and hopefully we can keep getting the production that we've seen.
"That's a great example of a guy right there that has an opportunity to step in and do something, and is able to do it."
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Great. Well, maybe the Lions can compete in the Special Olympics then?
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