For Will Blackmon, the four years with the Green Bay Packers never really got to be four. It amounted to two seasons at best. Sure, other factors played a role, but one of the biggest occurred inside the Metrodome turf in Week 4 of 2009, against the Minnesota Vikings. It took just one awkward step on the field for his left knee to give way. As the player lay on the field, contemplating his future, he knew this injury was worse than the previous broken foot, cracked rib, or fractured thumb.

He would rather have had a concussion. He confessed it himself, but a knee injury could end his career immediately. After all, what is a defensive back without speed! That turmoil only got worse after he signed with the New York Giants. It was a gamble for the team. Mind you, he was still recovering then, and almost failed the physical. But the New York team, despite Blackmon’s contract suggesting otherwise, handled the finances involved in getting the player’s knee fixed. Yet, the whole thing cost Blackmon a pretty penny.

“My knee injury is the biggest price I paid,” he revealed on the No Free Lunch with Ndamukong Suh podcast on Tuesday. “I lost eight figures from that knee injury, and it just made me resilient as hell, man. I remember I went to church, and Pastor Rick Warren was like, ‘Turn your pain into someone else’s gain.’

“The stuff I went through, I could share that to help anybody. Because I went through that [injury], it made me so resilient.”

Make no mistake. He wasn’t just speaking about that period retrospectively. Back when he had just signed with the New York team, he was that one person in their locker room who had something to prove. It was overdue, mainly because his previous four seasons with the Packers were equivalent to just two, and then a knee injury threatened to end his career. Plus, at that point, he had already missed 35 games, including three playoff ones, due to a variety of injuries. So, when the Giants extended their offer, the player grabbed it with both hands.

“I am going to go out there and show it, because I know I’ll be back 100 percent. I’ll be better than I was, I’ll be stronger than I was,” he said after signing with the team.

He had already undergone surgery and had been rehabbing for months. But it would take him two seasons, the entirety of his stay in New York, before he could get back to his old ways. While with the Giants, he appeared in only 11 games and started none. Production was limited. But, but, but…

The franchise not only appeared in the Super Bowl that season but also defeated the New England Patriots, 21-17, and with that, Blackmon won his sole championship. He contributed a kickoff return and a punt return in that game. However, the player who hoped to get back to his 2008 self couldn’t do so until the 2013 season in Jacksonville. There, he appeared in 15 games and started eight.

And after a few more years of playing the sport, 2016 was the last season he played in the NFL. Eventually, he put his cleats away. Not because no one wanted him, but because something more important had changed.

Will Blackmon’s life after hanging up his cleats

In 2018, Blackmon signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League, but was released there as well. That was the moment he decided to walk away from the game for good. When he explained his reasoning, it had nothing to do with his body.

“I didn’t leave because I was physically not able to play any longer; I left because it wasn’t fun for me anymore,” Blackmon said back then. “If I was going to live in other states, travel all the time, and be away from my family, I wanted to have fun. And when it got to the point where it wasn’t fun, I decided to move on.”

Since then, Blackmon has built a second life. He has worked as a host on Fox Sports and founded his own wine subscription company, Wine MVP. And just a year ago, he joined Crean Lutheran High School as a position coach.

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Most recently, he served as an on-air analyst for NFL Network on Good Morning Football during the last season. Through every one of those chapters, Blackmon credits football for giving him the tools to succeed beyond it.

“I think the biggest thing that it did was help me build good relationships; it’s the only way I was able to last as long as I did in the NFL. Even when I was released, injured, or dealt with any controversy, I never took it personal and I knew it was business,” Blackmon said.

Will Blackmon tried everything to bounce back from those injuries, and in many ways, he did. But they did take a lasting toll on the football career he could have had. What makes his story worth telling is that he seems fully determined to turn that pain into something bigger off the field, and by every measure, he already has.