Buffalo Bills defensive lineman Harrison Phillips spoke via video conference from his team’s training camp on Monday. He gave a very candid scope into the past year of his life, much of which was spent rehabbing from injury.
Phillips had a great 2019 season. The problem was that his campaign lasted two games for him before he suffered an ACL injury. Prior to that, Pro Football Focus had graded Phillips one of the league’s best overall defensive lineman. The carpet was ripped out from right underneath him.
But the emotions certainly didn’t stop when the injury happened. Phillips described nothing sort of a roller coaster of emotions while trying to repair his body throughout the past year.
“It honestly has been, emotionally, one of the hardest things I’ve had to do,” Phillips said. “When you care about something this much and have it taken away from you? And again, it’s always something so much bigger than myself. It’s… not being able to… last year we had such an amazing team and not being able to contribute, who’s to say we might not have won another game or two if I was able to play?
“I’m not saying that I’m a giant playmaker or anything like that, I’m saying you think those things into existence sometimes… and then, it was over, the season was over, everyone went home and here I am in sunny, January Buffalo, by myself, every day, rehabbing, five-six hour days, working, sweating, crying, throwing up from how hard that I’m going and there was definitely some depression through there, some anxiousness, anxiety, fear. I remember having a couple of conversations with the trainers, a very emotional phone call on a rehab day… thinking, ‘What if I can’t play again? What if this doesn’t get better? What if I don’t get stronger?’
Phillips went on to credit members of the Bills training staff pushing him to work through the emotions he faced while dealing with the physical limitations he was attempting to correct.
“Every day I was chipping away at the rock, chipping away, saw a light at the end of the tunnel and it got me here… and like I said, 330 days since I’ve got to play football with my friends again… it’s truly undescribable how great of a feeling it is,” Phillips said.
Phillips certainly will have plenty of folks in western New York pulling for him after his descriptive account of the past year. It’s hard not to respect someone putting that much determination into something for others. But the Bills will absolutely be hoping to see Phillips and his full self in 2020. Without Star Lotulelei in the lineup due to his decision to opt out of playing because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Phillips is a prime candidate for more playing time next season.
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