Now, Odrick doesn’t care much about how much he weighs, or how heavy he’s lifting. His focus is to make his body function optimally—as optimally as it can for someone who has played a brutal sport for the majority of his life. Odrick’s first serious injury happened at Penn State, when he tore the ligaments in his right ankle so violently that the fibula fractured, requiring a plate and six screws to be inserted. Eleven plays into his rookie season in the NFL, he re-fractured the same bone. Two weeks later, Odrick says he found a handwritten note in his locker from then-Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland that included this message: “We drafted you in the first round for a reason. We need you on the field, big guy.”
Odrick took multiple painkillers in order to return the practice field just six weeks after the break. He overcompensated for the right leg, and promptly fractured the fifth metatarsal in his left foot. That series of injuries has had lasting effects he’s still trying to correct today. He’d like to correct the football culture, too, at least the parts of it reflected in a sign he remembers hanging in the Dolphins training room: “Be a player, not a patient,” a quote from Jason Taylor.
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