Getty New York Giants offensive lineman Nick Gates broke his leg in Week 2 of the 2021 season.
Nick Gates is one tough dude. The New York Giants offensive lineman broke his leg in Week 2 of the 2021 NFL season, then underwent seven surgeries to fix the damage and is now rehabbing his way back to full strength.
As part of a profile on Gates’ comeback, Dan Duggan of The Athletic shared a photo on Twitter of the gruesome scar Gates now wears on his left leg.
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This is Nick Gates’ leg after 7 surgeries. He has a rod running along his tibia and 2 screws apiece at the top and bottom of the rod. There was also a skin graft with skin transplanted from his thigh to his lower leg. He opened up on the arduous process: t.co/6Gec5eEXLL
“This is Nick Gates after 7 surgeries,” Duggan wrote on Twitter. “He has a rod running along his tibia and 2 screws apiece at the top and bottom of the rod. There was also a skin graft with skin transplanted from his thigh to his lower leg.”
Gates, 26, became New York’s starting center in 2020 and was named a team captain in 2021, but his injury was so severe that it’s uncertain whether he’ll ever play in the NFL again.
“I don’t know,” Gates told The Athletic, when asked about a timeline for a potential return. “It’s so hard to tell. It’s slow. I don’t know if I’ll definitely be able to play again, but that’s my goal. I want to.”
Gates’ former teammate Billy Price, now a free agent, described the moment Gates suffered the injury in pretty graphic detail.
“It was a pop, almost like an airsoft gun,” Price said, per The Athletic. “To hear that pop of his leg, you talk about PTSD, something that’s always in your brain is that memory of that sound. It was definitely scary. When you see it before he rolled over and his leg was dangling there, it was traumatic.”
The Giants’ Plan at Center Moving Forward
With Gates’ future unknown, the Giants had to plan accordingly at the center position. In free agency they signed former Buffalo Bills lineman Jonathan Feliciano, who currently projects to start at center. After that, the interior depth is somewhat shaky.
Fellow free-agency addition Max Garcia could probably step in at center in a pinch. Most of his NFL snaps have come at guard, but he was a standout center in college at Florida. The Giants addressed both the tackle (Evan Neal, Round 1) and guard (Joshua Ezeudu) positions early in the draft, but they did not select a center.
Feliciano only played in nine games (six starts) for the Bills last season, so the Giants are really counting on that gamble to pay off.
That Time Nick Gates Tried to Fight Aaron Donald
This is what the Giants will miss most about Gates, if he’s unable to complete his comeback from a broken leg. He was a decent player before the injury, but the attitude he carried on the playing field was the real reason he was voted team captain before the 2021 season.
I mean, how nuts do you have to be to try to fight All-Pro defensive tackle Aaron Donald? Those are the type of guys you want in your huddle, protecting your quarterback from hungry pass-rushers.