J.J. Watt's groin injury turned out to be a lot more serious than initially thought, according to a report from ESPN.com.
The report claims Watt played through multiple partial and full groin tears throughout the 2015 season. Specifically, he had a partially torn left and right abdominals, a partially torn right adductor longus, a fully torn left adductor longus and a fully torn left adductor pectineus. According to ESPN, these are muscles in the core area.
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What's not clear is when Watt suffered these various injuries. In a recent interview, Watt said that the groin issues had been going on for a while. He also revealed he played with a herniated disc, which was previously unknown.
“Last year was definitely by far the most strenuous on my body that I’ve ever had, fighting through a whole bunch of things that I’ve never dealt with before,” Watt said. “We had the broken hand. I had a herniated disc in my back halfway through the year. I had, obviously, everything that went on with my groins and I don’t think people fully understand what that process was like and how long that had been dealt with.”
He played in all 16 games despite his name being a fixture in the Texans' injury report, and oh by the way led the NFL sacks (17.5) en route to his third defensive player of the year award.
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While Watt did deal with groin issues all season long, the worst came in the playoffs when he left the game and never returned. On his final play he was battling with Chiefs left tackle Eric Fisher who shoved him to the turf.
JJ Watt's foot slipped on the turf, took a little abuse after going down pic.twitter.com/7RUXTCKLGp
— The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) January 9, 2016
As for his health now, Watt feels fine.
“I’m doing pretty darn well,” Watt told SportsRadio 610. “I feel really good. I’m back to full-fledged training. Obviously, I’m working to get back to my 100 percent tip-top shape. I am back to my full workouts, I’m back to everything. So now it’s just building back to what I was and going above and beyond that, which I will be at by the first game of the season.”
