Rich Still Can’t Believe Packers WR Christian Watson Returned to Play after His Hospital Trip

Rich has been doing this a long time. NFL Network since 2003, seven years of SportsCenter before that. And he has never seen anything like what Christian Watson pulled off.

"I have never seen a player leave the field, go into the locker room, hop into an ambulance, go to the hospital, come back and play in the game," Rich said. "I've never seen it. Ever."

He was quick to add that he wasn't reciting his resume for its own sake. It was Halloween, and he was "dressed as myself."

When Watson went down, Rich assumed the worst. The Packers receiver has had trouble staying healthy, and Rich's first thought was, "here is his annual 4-to-6 weeker." The injury came on yet another deep ball, which Rich called fitting, because he considers Watson arguably the best deep-ball receiver in the league. Rich rattled off JSN, Ja'Marr Chase, Zay Flowers and Olave as receivers who could be in the conversation for best overall, but "in terms of going up top, this guy is a killer."

Then came the surreal part. Watson rode to the hospital in full uniform. Rich joked that it was a good thing he never took it off, because "he might not have been able to get back in the game if he had to put it back on."

Watson explained what happened in his own words. He came down on the ball or his elbow, couldn't breathe, and felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Back on the sideline he was "spitting up some blood or something like that," so the doctor sent him for a CT scan. He admitted he tried to beg his way out of it.

"Everything looked good," Watson said. "I just got a rib, that's all." The major stuff checked out. "No internal bleeding or anything like that, so I was able to get back out there."

He said he told the medical staff before they even left the hospital that he wanted to go back in, and found out he was cleared right as they were leaving.

Rich had a new entry for the football lexicon. Forget "rub some dirt on it." Now there's "no internal bleeding."

Watson also described the scene when he climbed out of the ambulance and saw cameras on him. "I used to watch WWE as a kid," he said. "I felt like I was watching a WWE SmackDown versus Raw or something out there." He said the fans cheering his return made it exciting.

Asked why he would come back with his team already leading and 100 yards in the first half, Watson's answer was about everything he has missed. He has had injuries that kept him off the field for a significant amount of time. "Any chance I get to go out there on the football field, I'm going to be out there on the football field."

"I love it," Rich said. He also confessed a less noble reason for his enthusiasm. Watson is helping him in his guillotine league.

The wrestling angle got its official stamp from an unexpected source. Paul Heyman posted about it, and the show read his take. "We did this with Sting in 1991 versus Ravishing Rick Rude, and the industry has repeated it with great success in numerous circumstances," Heyman wrote. "My most sincere compliments to the NFL's creative team." He even signed off with a plug for his own round table and a wink: "I love football even though it's predetermined."

Everyone on set had fun with it, joking that a true wrestling version would have needed a Mack truck crashing through the ambulance. And the verdict on set about the post itself was unanimous. "That sounds exactly like him." Heyman, it seems, writes his own material.