On Tuesday, the Detroit Lions announced defensive end Ezekiel Ansah has been placed on injured reserve, ending his disappointing 2018 season. With Ansah set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2019, and the Lions likely no longer willing to risk a lot of money on an oft-injured player, it’s very likely that Ansah’s Lions career is over for good.
The overwhelming response to this has been something to the likes of “good, the Lions should have moved on last year.”
And while maybe that’s true, it’s a little harsh on both the Lions and Ansah. As injury-prone as Ansah has been, this was something entirely different. Prior to 2018, Ansah had never missed more than three games in a season. No one could have seen such a devastating injury completely derailing his 2018 season almost immediately.
So instead of focusing on the bad parts of Ansah’s career, let’s take a moment to remember the good. Today’s Question of the Day is:
What was your favorite Ezekiel Ansah moment?
My answer: I’m going to take this all the way back to Ansah’s rookie season back in 2013. In fact, I’m going to take it back to his first career NFL game ever. His first career preseason game. His first career NFL series.
That has to be just an amazing moment for a rookie. His first series ever, and he goes ahead and picks off Mark Sanchez for a pick six. It was also an awesome moment for fans, who were understandably skeptical of the pick, considering Ansah’s lack of experience in playing football. Suddenly their first-round pick was superstar bound.
Sadly, Ansah has not reached the endzone in his entire regular season career, but for this one moment the possibilities were endless.
Your turn.