RENTON — Apparently it was the shoes.
OK, some rest helped too, but a change in footwear was indeed partially responsible for keeping Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowl safety Kam Chancellor on the field.
After a report came out last week saying that Chancellor nearly had ankle surgery to deal with bone spurs following Seattle’s loss in San Diego, the safety spoke for the first time since the bye week to talk about his ankle situation.
One thing that wasn’t known before talking to Chancellor Tuesday is that the issue is with both ankles, but as head coach Pete Carroll said Monday, Chancellor doesn’t expect the bone spurs to affect him going forward this season.
Chancellor acknowledged that after playing through pain in San Diego, surgery was a possibility, but said a change in shoes, along with a day off of practice, alleviated the pain enough that he could play against Denver and not require surgery. And not only did Chancellor play against the Broncos, he had an interception, a forced fumble and nine tackles on his way to NFC defensive Player of the Week honors.
“That Tuesday before that (Chargers) game, they started hurting a little bit,” Chancellor said. “I didn’t want to talk about it because I’m not a guy to talk about pain and complain, so I went along with it, thought it would be OK by the time game time got here, but it wasn’t unfortunately.
“I went through it, talked to the trainers the next couple of days after the game, telling them how they feel at that moment — they weren’t feeling too good. But I took a day off that Wednesday, got some rest on my ankles, then adjusted the shoes up, then the next day I went through warmups to see how it felt on the shoes, and it felt good.”
Despite playing through considerable pain in what was not the best game for him or the rest of Seattle’s defense, Chancellor wouldn’t use the ankle injuries as an excuse for the way he played in San Diego.
“If you’re a man you take your beatings like a man, and get back up and fight again,” he said. “… Of course it was stressful playing like that, but it’s something that goes along with football. Some of the best played through pain, got beat on pain and beat people on pain. It’s part of football.”
Chancellor, who had surgery on his right ankle after the 2012 season, doesn’t expect to be hindered by the ankles going forward, but realizes it’s something he could have to manage throughout the season: “I manage everything during the season. The way I play I have to manage my whole body anyway.”
Chancellor played through a hip injury that had affected him for most of his career before finally having surgery last offseason. And he managed that well enough to arguably be Seattle’s best player in the postseason. So even if he’s occasionally missing practice this season to rest his ankle, you can expect him to be himself on game day.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.
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