Of course Leonard Floyd was frightened.
The Bears rookie can’t really remember much about the hit, in which his head collided into teammate Akiem Hicks’ side at MetLife Stadium two weeks ago. And he probably prefers not to ponder the possibility of football mortality at 24.
But the remembers the aftermath. He was told not to move, as part of neck and spinal cord injury protocol. Trainers reassured him he’d be OK, as they prepared to carry him off the field on a backboard.
His mind tried not to wander.
“I listened to what they were trying to tell me to do,” he said.
Floyd would ride in an ambulance to the hospital — for the first time in his life — but return to the Bears’ charter flight before it left for Chicago. His teammates joked with him, telling him to keep his head up — something he didn’t do during the injury, which Floyd attributed to poor technique.
“They were just happy that I was fine,” Floyd said Monday, his first public comments since the injury. “That I was going to be able to play again.”
Floyd called his family to reassure them.
“I was kinda scared at the moment,” Floyd said. “Like, pretty much a day later, I felt like I was going to be back out there soon.”
Exactly two weeks later, without a full practice, he returned to game action and recorded two sacks Sunday against the 49ers. The second, a safety, came when Floyd lined up across from right tackle Trent Brown and leaned his body to appear as he was going to use a speed rush. He instead ducked inside, froze Brown, and sacked Blaine Gabbert.
It was the exclamation point on the Bears’ 26-6 win.
“What was impressive about Leonard was being able to put maybe a couple of not some of his better plays behind him,” coach John Fox said. “I thought he responded really well in the second half.”
Floyd said he felt “jittery” in the first half, because he hadn’t practiced in full since the injury, going through concussion protocol instead. Veteran Pernell McPhee noticed that he was beating himself up after plays, and told him on every trip to the sideline to relax.
Finally, Floyd said, he finally decided to listen to him.
“It’s definitely a mental frustration that can happen to you,” Floyd said. “I just kept telling myself to, ‘Keep playing, keep playing — You’re going to end up making some plays.’”
He did.
“I’d say the more the game went on, the more I settled down and started being back to myself,” Floyd said.
Fox was happy to see it. Perhaps the Bears’ most promising young player was not only healthy, but electric again The former No. 9 pick has seven sacks in only nine games.
“Obviously we’ve talked about his athleticism, his speed,” Fox said. “We could have used it in every game.”