has already done the impo sible by returning to the practice field for the Washington Football Team, 21 months after suffering a compound leg fracture that nearly cost him his life. The veteran quarterback was recently on Sunday. Now, he's on the doorstep of reaching another milestone in his recovery as Washington is set to hold its first full-padded practice on
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Tuesday.On the eve of that se sion, Smith talked about his long road back to the in a video released on . During that interview, Smith noted that it was "tough to put into words" the feeling he had when he was finally able to practice for the first time."To finally lace of the cleats, to throw my jersey on again and put my helmet on and go out there was such a good feeling," Smtih said. "The butterflies, the feeling that you get in your gut going out there -- It's been so long since I felt that." When Smith originally suffered the compound leg
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fracture that resulted in a broken tibia and fibula, the surgery to repair his leg was supposed to be just one procedure. However, shortly after the operation, Smith's leg became that required an additional 16 surgeries. Because of it, Smith nearly lost his life and also discu sed amputating the leg. Back in February, Smith even noted he was So why would Smith, who has made over $173 million over his NFL career, even come back and risk injuring yourself again? "I know that's kind of the easy thing to think," Smith answered. "I've had a lot of people tell
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me, 'You've played a long time and made a lot of money. Why not kind of ride off into the sunset?' I know in the NFL world I'm an old guy -- I'm a dinosaur. But, in the bigger aspect of life, I'm 36 years old, I have three little kids, I have the rest of my life in front of me."Selfishly, I'm even doing this for them as crazy as that sounds. I know if I can go out there and play quarterback, I can do anything else in life. It's one of the hardest jobs in sports and so grateful to be able to put that jersey on the last two days and go out there and try and do it. For me, it's taking on that challenge. I don't think it's something I could walk away from and be able to sleep a night if I did. I don't think I could look my kids in the eye and talk to them about giving
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it their all and pushing through things.
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We all face adversity in life and it comes in different forms. Was I going to talk about it or was I going to be about it? For me, that's what it is."Washington hasn't shut the door on Smith figuring in somewhere in the club's quarterback battle this summer, but former first-round pick has the inside track for Week 1. Smith did note that returning to a game is a "distant goal" of his, but is simply taking it one step at a time during his comeback. No matter if he gets that far or not, it's hard to not call this comeback anything other then extraordinary.
