<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This story appears in the Aug. 8, 2016, issue of&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;Sports Illustrated&lt;em&gt;. Subscribe to the magazine&amp;nbsp;here.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One player expected to be back quickly, the other wondered whether his career was over. One watched helplessly as his squad struggled, the other looked on while his team thrived. The stories of Kevin White and Kelvin Benjamin connect and contrast: Two promising young receivers who spent the last year stuck on the sidelines; two different injuries; two divergent paths back to the field. The same feelings of helplessness, doubt, pain and elation; the ebbs and flows of a year removed.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a league in which 474 players were placed on season-ending IR in 2015, these two receivers\u2019 experiences are indicative of the tenuousness of life in the NFL. Injuries are such an everyday occurrence that fans simply adjust their fantasy lineups and assume, He\u2019ll be back eventually. The how of it is immaterial. Yet for so many players, the how is their everyday reality.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;\u201CI thought it would be a two-week break.\u201D&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At 22, Kevin White arrived at his first NFL OTAs, on May 27, 2015, in the best shape of his life. The Bears\u2019 rookie sported a physique both sturdy and sinewy, with ab muscles that had their own ab muscles. As White went from unknown prospect at Lackawanna junior college in Scranton, Pa., to All-America at West Virginia to No. 7 draft pick, his work ethic had always headlined his scouting report. \u201CThe outside of his body looked like a chiseled sculpture,\u201D says his father, Kevin White Sr., \u201Cbut on the inside it had taken a toll.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One week into OTAs, White felt discomfort in his left leg and noticed a bump on his shin. He figured it was just his new cleats\u2014but then cornerback Tracy Porter pointed out his limp. On Tuesday, June 16, Bears general manager Ryan Pace asked White what was wrong. That was the first day he missed practice. \u201CI thought it would be a two-week break,\u201D White says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;X-rays showed a small black line down White\u2019s lower leg, what appeared to be shin splints. If he stayed off the leg, doctors told him, the injury could heal itself.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After six weeks of rest, White reported for training camp and had a follow-up X-ray to see how the shin had progressed. He was so confident, he thought it was a waste of time. His family was in town. That night they all went to Dave &amp;amp; Buster\u2019s and talked about how excited they were for Kevin to return. They played Pop-A-Shot and Pac-Man. \u201CThen we get the results,\u201D says Pace, \u201Cand nothing has changed. The line is still there. We\u2019re like, F---.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;White now appeared to have a stress fracture, which could require surgery. He was incredulous. He persuaded Pace to let him try running\u2014just once\u2014before they made a decision. He ran well; he was encouraged. The next day, however, White woke up, took one step out of bed and felt the pain again.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Aug. 15, Pace cornered the receiver outside the trainer\u2019s room and told him to sit down. Sorry, Pace said, but surgery was the best option for the team. White sank into a chair and broke into tears.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Seven hundred miles away, 24-year-old Kelvin Benjamin showed up on May 26 for his second year of Panthers OTAs, nine pounds overweight. A few weeks before his arrival he had strained his left hamstring, and in mid-June he would strain his right one. Coach Ron Rivera would attribute both injuries to the added bulk.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But when Benjamin reported to camp on July 30 he was, by all accounts, a changed man. Rivera said the receiver was in \u201Ctremendous shape,\u201D among the best-conditioned players on the team. Benjamin was getting regular massages, monitoring his sleep and stretching more. The frequency and intensity of his workouts had increased, and he\u2019d hired a chef, who put him on a strict diet of lean proteins, leafy greens and complex carbs. Gone were the sugary cereals and fruit drinks that Benjamin kept around the house, along with the collard greens, neck bones and oxtails his mom had always made for him.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;An ESPN report named Benjamin the Panthers\u2019 \u201Cearly MVP,\u201D and in Carolina\u2019s preseason opener he caught the team\u2019s first TD of the year. Five days later, on Aug. 19, the Panthers and the Dolphins held a joint practice, and when they broke off into one-on-one passing drills, Carolina quarterback Cam Newton pointed at his top receiver to go first. Benjamin called for a \u201Cseven route\u201D\u2014a corner\u2014and lined up against Miami\u2019s Reshad Jones. As Benjamin attempted to speed-cut past Jones, his left knee buckled. It would be the first time he was ever carted off a field.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhen you\u2019re getting carted off, you see practice going on without you,\u201D he says. \u201CRight there you know that you can be the past. You &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; the past.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Benjamin was not yet aware that he\u2019d become one of 37 NFL players who would tear an ACL before Week 1. After Panthers owner Jerry Richardson came into the locker room to speak with him, the receiver found himself alone. He checked his cellphone, already deluged with tweets about the injury and text-message prayers. He was helped out of his uniform and pads, and a trainer dragged a folding chair into the shower. There Benjamin sat silently, letting the water flow over him as thoughts flooded his mind. &lt;em&gt;How is the team going to do without me? Is my career over? How am I going to feed my family?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CBut mostly,\u201D Benjamin says, \u201CI was just hoping it was a dream.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;\u201CIt didn\u2019t really matter no more.\u201D&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the eight days leading up to his operation, White was haunted by a recurring nightmare in which various people told him his leg was injured and required surgery. He\u2019d think, &lt;em&gt;This is all a dream. This can\u2019t be real.&lt;/em&gt; Then he\u2019d wake up in a panic. White would reach for his phone to regain his bearings\u2014and his heart would drop again. \u201CIt would hit me like, Oh, no, this is &lt;em&gt;real&lt;/em&gt;,\u201D he says. \u201CI relived that every night.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Aug. 23, White\u2019s parents drove him to a hospital in Chicago for the operation. He was nervous. He doesn\u2019t like needles. Doctors began to describe the procedure: They would make an incision below his knee, drill a hole\u2014but White cut them off. He just wanted to get it over with. As nurses wheeled him into the operating room, tears streamed down his cheeks.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When he eventually awoke, with a titanium rod stretching the length of his tibia and several metal screws inserted across the bone, White felt, he says now, \u201Clike a freakin\u2019 robot.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After his injury, Benjamin took \u201Cthree personal days, to feel bad for myself.\u201D ACL tears, which require one of the longest and most grueling recoveries in sports, tend to do that to athletes. Benjamin replayed the fateful cut in his mind, thinking that if he\u2019d just dropped his hips and broken it down, like a comeback route, his knee might have been fine. He didn\u2019t watch the Panthers\u2019 second preseason game\u2014\u201CIt didn\u2019t really matter no more,\u201D he says. He wondered what he\u2019d done to deserve this.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Benjamin headed to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte on Sept. 10, and when doctors began to explain his procedure\u2014not only had he torn his ACL, which would be replaced with a patella tendon graft, but he also tore his lateral meniscus, which required sutures\u2014he told them, \u201CI don\u2019t want to know.\u201D Benjamin, too, was \u201Cjust ready to get it over with.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He awoke after surgery to the sound of his own screams. He tries but fails to describe the feeling of having one part of your body removed and attached to another\u2014he just remembers it hurt. Throughout that first night he\u2019d be yanked out of sleep by a burning pain, and he\u2019d press the button on his IV pump, sending morphine coursing through his body.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At one point, in his sedated state, Benjamin called his mother, Christine, back home in Kissimmee, Fla. She missed the call but heard the voicemail later that night. \u201CMom, I\u2019m in so much pain,\u201D her youngest son pleaded through the phone. \u201CYou have to get here!\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;\u201CI\u2019m with you guys\u2014but I\u2019m not with you.\u201D&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After White\u2019s surgery, doctors told him not to do anything for two weeks, so he slept as much as possible (until his parents, who moved in with him temporarily, compelled him to get out of bed). He spent most of his waking hours watching movies, old favorites such as &lt;em&gt;Titanic&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Matilda&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Little Rascals&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;The Notebook&lt;/em&gt;.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The days were exercises in pain tolerance, but White\u2019s mother, Tammy, feared her son would become addicted to painkillers, so she slowly began cutting his meds in half, augmenting them with Tylenol. After two weeks passed, Kevin returned to the Bears\u2019 facility. He was shocked by how skinny his quad had gotten, but still: When trainers asked him to lie on his back and lift his ankle even an inch, he thought, &lt;em&gt;Y\u2019all just want me to do that? Easy.&lt;/em&gt; \u201CAnd then I\u2019d try it,\u201D he says, \u201Cand be like, &lt;em&gt;Oh, shoot&lt;/em&gt;.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Every day White met with team trainers, who gave him a set of exercises. Then, as practice began, he was often on his own. As he lay on the trainer\u2019s table doing hundreds of leg raises, he\u2019d watch his teammates through a window. \u201CAt first it was cool,\u201D he says. \u201CAfter a while it was like, I just want to be out there with them.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yet White loathed joining those same teammates at lunchtime. Being on crutches meant that he had to search each day for a new volunteer to carry his cafeteria tray and serve his meals. Sure, he had a jersey and a locker, and he attended team meetings every day. But being in the NFL still didn\u2019t quite feel real. \u201CI got drafted\u2014but I was watching games on TV like everybody else,\u201D he says. \u201CLike, I\u2019m with you guys\u2014but I\u2019m not &lt;em&gt;with&lt;/em&gt; you.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As White slowly regained strength, trainers had him stand, one hand against the wall, and lift his leg up and down. He felt like a child. &lt;em&gt;How do you not know how to walk?&lt;/em&gt; White would ask himself.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Eventually he was really walking, then faster, then backward. He began doing lower-body strength exercises (squats, pistol squats, lunges, leg presses), working in the pool and on an antigravity treadmill.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gradually White\u2019s rehab moved outside. His limp subsided. But he could still feel the screws in his leg. His movements felt mechanical, unnatural, and when he finally set foot on the practice field, on Nov. 24\u2014during a three-week window in which the Bears could weigh whether to reinsert him into the 53-man roster or put him on season-ending IR\u2014he labored through his sharp cuts downfield. The Bears were 5\u20138, and White felt he owed it to the organization to play. But when he asked Jay Cutler what he should do, the QB told him not to rush it, that he needed to be smart. In the end Cutler advised White not to come back.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The decision wasn\u2019t White\u2019s to make. On Dec. 15, Pace gave him the news he already knew was coming. His season was over.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When Benjamin left the hospital, one day after surgery, his mother was waiting for him at his downtown Charlotte condo; she\u2019d taken the first flight from Florida after receiving his message. For the first two weeks Benjamin mostly stayed in bed, lights off, sleeping, occasionally playing &lt;em&gt;Call of Duty&lt;/em&gt; or watching movies.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile he followed the Panthers\u2019 first two regular-season games on his phone\u2019s NFL app. At times he\u2019d check out highlights after big plays, but quickly he learned: A full game \u201Cwas just too much to see,\u201D he says. The pain in his leg was excruciating, but he often skipped his medication, telling his mom that he didn\u2019t want to get hooked. At night, as he lay in bed, she rubbed his leg until he fell asleep.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Within a week of surgery, Benjamin was back in the Panthers\u2019 facility full-time. To regain extension in his knee he lay supine as two trainers pushed down on his leg, straightening it past the point of comfort, an exercise Benjamin equates to torture. He dipped in the HydroWorx therapy pool, held on to a metal bar and lifted his knee up and down, again and again.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because he\u2019d torn his lateral meniscus, not just his ACL, Benjamin stayed on crutches for six weeks, during which he wasn\u2019t allowed on the sideline for games. He refused to watch from a box, so he hardly watched at all. He didn\u2019t attend receivers meetings all season. \u201CI wanted to give them their space,\u201D he says. \u201CThey were out there balling.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the Panthers raced to the best start in franchise history, Benjamin noticed that he no longer knew the hand signals Newton and his receivers were using. He felt like a fan. Back in September he\u2019d chosen not to be included in the team photo; he didn\u2019t want to remember the season. But now he was watching his teammates make history, dabbing their way to a 15\u20131 record. He felt angry that they were succeeding without him, then guilty for feeling angry. \u201CI had always been &lt;em&gt;the guy&lt;/em&gt;,\u201D Benjamin says, \u201Cbut this [experience] made me more of a team guy. It helped me get some of those selfish feelings out.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When Benjamin shed his crutches, which had made his underarms perpetually sore, he felt reinvigorated. He went through all of the same single-leg balance and strength exercises that White did, incrementally adding weight. Roughly 10 weeks post-op, Benjamin started an upper-body lifting program, heading to the weight room every afternoon following rehab. Those around him say they had never seen him so dedicated, so driven.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Finally, in mid-January, four months after surgery, as the Panthers entered the playoffs as the NFC\u2019s top seed, Benjamin began jogging on land. He did light runs on the field before games, stalked the sideline during games and posed for pictures after games. He became the team\u2019s most spirited cheerleader as Carolina mollywhopped its conference opponents.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He thought, &lt;em&gt;Man, if we win the Super Bowl, I get a ring too.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;\u201CI have to go. I\u2019m ready.\u201D&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For White the most difficult part of a year away from football was regaining his confidence, learning to run without being conscious of the hardware in his leg. So shortly after the season ended he had another surgery, this time to remove the screws. Once those were excised from his body, he says, he finally felt like his old self.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Still, he needed to know for sure. In March, White went home to Macungie, Pa., and joined his two brothers, Ka\u2019Raun and Kyzir (who both play for West Virginia), and his best friend, Devon Blake (a teammate at Lackawanna), for some light training at a high school. White had planned to watch, but soon he was lacing up his cleats. As the workout wound down, White and Blake caught each other\u2019s eyes. The two friends have a long history of racing. Blake asked White if he still had it; White nodded. They lined up on the goal line, and \u201CKev just took off,\u201D Ka\u2019Raun says. \u201CThe race was over from the first step. He gave me that look like, &lt;em&gt;I\u2019m back, baby&lt;/em&gt;.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last week, on his first day of training camp, White lined up both as an outside receiver and in the slot and didn\u2019t drop a single pass. \u201CIf I woke up today and had no memory of the last year,\u201D he says, \u201CI wouldn\u2019t know that there was ever anything wrong.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the week leading up to Super Bowl 50, in which the Panthers would play the Broncos, Benjamin was able to work out with his teammates at San Jose State; he was cleared to do cuts and jukes, lateral slides and shuffles, backpedals and karaoke drills. Then, in the big game, he watched from the sideline as Carolina\u2019s offense sputtered. Afterward he heard all the pundits: &lt;em&gt;If Benjamin had been out there, the Panthers would have won.&lt;/em&gt; He couldn\u2019t help but ponder the possibility.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the off-season Benjamin worked more with Carolina\u2019s strength coach, less with the training staff. He was cleared to join the team\u2019s conditioning program on April 26 and was a limited participant in OTAs. He didn\u2019t wear a brace because he thinks it is a mental hindrance and he does not want to \u201Cbaby\u201D the knee.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In June, back in Charlotte, Benjamin sat in the cab of his black pickup truck alongside his mother, on their way to grab something to eat. Christine remembers how excited her son was to finally play again, how his eyes lit up as he rattled off Carolina\u2019s schedule. Eventually he mentioned that on July 28 he would have to start training camp in Spartanburg, S.C., on the same field where he\u2019d torn up his knee. Christine was apprehensive. She couldn\u2019t handle seeing him go through another year like that.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CMom, don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s going to be all right,\u201D he said. \u201CI have to go. I\u2019m ready.\u201D\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/08/03/kevin-white-kelvin-benjamin-injury-2016-nfl-season>