Photo Credit: 49ers
It’s amazing Jason Verrett is still playing professional football. His body, at every conceivable turn, has stifled his attempts to maintain his once-stellar career. The Pro Bowler in 2015 has played eight games in the last five years, and four in the last four.
He knows how fleeting this career can be, how brief the moments are spent relishing in success that’s not just earned by teammates. After far too many of those moments spent as an onlooker, and with retirement almost beckoning, Verrett is an NFL player again, finally.
In 2016, following that Pro Bowl season, Verrett played four games before tearing his ACL. The following season was lost due to complications with recovery from that tear. In training camp in 2018, Verrett tore his Achilles.
You’ll remember that’s an injury which Richard Sherman said took him two years to recover from. While he played in the 2018 campaign, Sherman said he played with staples in his heels and acknowledged he was in tremendous pain for that season.
Verrett’s career with the then-San Diego Chargers ended after 2018, when the 49ers came calling, taking a shot on his upside with effectively a veteran minimum contract. Last summer, Verrett said he strongly considered retirement, until making up his mind to continue playing football roughly 6-7 months after the Achilles tear.
He credited his family, son Deuce, and his fiancee, McKayla for getting him through an emotionally fraught period.
Jason Verrett considered retiring – turning point to keep playing came 6-7 mos. after injury. Why’d he continue?
“My family, my son and my fiancee. Just soaking in with them and once I'd seen the fact that everything would be alright physically, it just clicked to never give up." https://t.co/xrBCbZ972r pic.twitter.com/SuIrp78DML— Jake Hutchinson (@hutchdiesel) July 29, 2019
But just as the ACL tear didn’t fully heal, Verrett wasn’t 100 percent in 2019, roughly a year after his Achilles tear. He was called upon in Week 3 against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3, getting burned deep by Diontae Johnson on back-to-back plays for a pass interference and touchdown.
By the following week, Verrett was placed on injured reserve, ending his season. Then came 2020’s training camp, during which Verrett excelled, until straining his hamstring and missing the first two weeks of the regular season.
In so many ways, it seemed like Verrett was done, like his chance would never come. Not with a body which would not cooperate and not within a team which had three starting corners not named Jason fighting for two jobs.
But the NFL is a massively unpredictable landscape defined by attrition. Richard Sherman suffered a calf injury, ending up on injured reserve. Ahkello Witherspoon suffered a hamstring tweak. And Emmanuel Moseley suffered a concussion and remains in concussion protocol.
After more than three years without a start, Sunday was Verrett’s opportunity. And for a man who’s spent the better part of a half-decade dreaming about the moment he could play football again and working tirelessly towards that end, he may well have been over-prepared.
Against the Giants, Verrett was a menace, playing 45 snaps (87 percent, subbed at the end for the backups to replace him) with a pass breakup and multiple hits at the line of scrimmage. He received a 75.3 PFF grade (if you care about that sort of thing).
The Eagles are likely without their four top receivers in Alshon Jeffery (out), DeSean Jackson (out), rookie Jalen Reagor (injured reserve) and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside (doubtful), so Verrett will likely have an easier assignment than Darius Slayton.
“I’ve worked my tail off to get back out there,” Verrett said Friday, ahead of his second-straight start.
He credited the training staff in Santa Clara for placing him on injured reserve and providing him the time needed to recover physically after trying to rush back to action for so long.
“It’s night-and-day different,” Verrett said of the way his body feels now, compared to 2019. “I give credit to the strength coaches and training staff IR-ing me last year allowing me to get my body fully underneath me, just due to the fact of all the injuries that I went through those previous years.”
Verrett said he “didn’t really get the full recovery” after tearing his ACL, dealing with complications, then suffering the Achilles tear, which he said often takes two years to heal. He said he’s “loving” where his body is currently at.
He recalled the experience of watching the 49ers trudge their way to the Super Bowl with joy for his teammates and friends and the simultaneous, supreme disappointment of knowing he would not be involved.
Being able to join them in a real-life, actual NFL game was invaluable, Verrett said.
“They seen what it was like for me on my worst days,” Verrett said. “They seen me on the sideline while they were on the road to Super Bowl. It was definitely bittersweet for me watching that. Happy for them, but bittersweet just because of the competitor that I am, always wanting to be out on on the field and flying around with those guys, so this Sunday, man, it was everything for me just being able to be back out there. I’m just looking forward to doing that week-in and week-out with those guys.”
