Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown addressed the ongoing hospitalization of his teammate Jack Campbell, after the linebacker suffered a scary neck injury on Sunday, November 1.
“I just want to say, all of you guys that are watching this, keep him in your thoughts and your prayers,” St. Brown, 27, said on the Wednesday, November 4 episode of his “St. Brown Podcast.” “You hate to see anyone go down in this game, whether it’s someone on our team, someone on their team, any team in this league. Injuries [are] something that make this game so tough and so real at the same time.”
Campbell suffered the injury during the fourth quarter of the Lions’ game against the Minnesota Vikings at Detroit’s Ford Field on Sunday. He broke his silence about the incident on Wednesday, November 4, saying he has “full movement” in his lower body.
“I remember being out there on the field watching him, seeing him on the ground from a distance,” St. Brown continued. “All I could think about was his wife and his newborn baby that he just had a few months ago.”
Jack and his wife, Megan, welcome their first child, son Cooper, in July.
“I just want him to be OK,” St. Brown said. “To be able to play with his kid, honestly, and be normal. When things like that happen throughout the game or throughout the season, it does make it harder for us to go back and play. It’s like, ‘Damn, we took care of him, put him on a stretcher, sent him out to the hospital and now we have to go play again.’ That kind of sucks.”
He added, “But it’s what I signed up for. It’s what we signed up for. We get paid a lot of money to play this sport that we love. So, we gotta finish the game and things like that. But injuries like that make you put things in perspective. He has done that for a lot of us on our team. I’m thinking about Jack. We’re all thinking about Jack. We hope he continues to get better. All we can do is pray for him.”
In a statement released by the Lions on Wednesday, Jack said he and his family wanted to “sincerely thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of love, prayers, and support we’ve received over the past few days.”
“It means more to us than words can express,” he wrote. “I’m incredibly encouraged by the progress I’ve made in such a short period of time. I have full movement in my lower body, and I’m continuing to make progress with movement in my upper body. I know there’s still work ahead, but I remain very optimistic. I’m taking things one day at a time, staying positive, and focusing on getting better.”
