After an excellent career at Tennessee, Shuler’s time in the NFL didn’t have the same fortune.
Knoxville, Tenn. — Heath Shuler asked doctors to cut off the toes on his left foot so he could continue playing football.
Who makes such an outlandish request?
A guy who isn’t ready to retire. A guy who hasn’t fulfilled his dreams. A guy who had not lived up to the promise of being the No. 3 overall pick in the NFL draft.
After a rocky three-year stint at Washington, the former star quarterback from Rocky Top was traded to the New Orleans Saints in 1997.
During a game in 1998, Shuler suffered a devastating injury. Playing against the Oakland Raiders, who shared a field with the Oakland Athletics baseball team, Shuler got his foot caught in the dirt infield near second base. The toes on his left foot bent backwards.
“I heard a snap and all five toes ended up on top of my foot,’’ Shuler told Jimmy Hyams on The Rewind on Full Disclosure. “I thought I broke my foot in half.’’
Instead, all five toes were dislocated. He had two surgeries and was on crutches for 11 and a half months.
“I was never able to gain movement in my toes,’’ Shuler said.
The Rewind: Heath Shuler tells Jimmy Hyams what led the former quarterback to Tennessee.
After a brilliant career at Tennessee, where he was a Heisman Trophy runner-up in 1993 and the SEC Player of the Year, Shuler had struggled mightily in the NFL. He was a top three pick in the 1994 draft by his favorite team growing up, the Redskins.
He was labeled a holdout even though he had pushed to sign earlier so he could be in camp. But the Redskins declined to sign Shuler until the team had inked its No. 2 pick in that draft, guard Tre Johnson.
Unfortunately for Shuler, the holdout label stuck. Sonny Jurgensen, a star quarterback for the Redskins turned color analyst, turned against Shuler. Jurgensen criticized Shuler for holding out, then criticized his play. Jurgensen favored Washington’s 7th-round pick that year, quarterback Gus Frerotte.
Shuler was eventually traded to the Saints, who were horrific under Mike Ditka, a Hall of Fame player but a dud as a Saints coach.
In Shuler’s second season in the Crescent City, he was the starter when the fateful injury occurred.
Shuler was traded to the Raiders, coached by Jon Gruden, a former graduate assistant at Tennessee.
“That offense suited me,’’ Shuler said. “It was a perfect situation.’’
The Raiders had Rich Gannon and Wade Wilson, two veteran quarterbacks who could help mentor Shuler. They also had a terrific offensive-minded coach in Gruden.
“I learned more about football in six months with Jon Gruden than anybody in my entire football career combined,’’ Shuler said.
But to play, Shuler had to pass a physical.
He failed.
“I asked [the doctors] to just cut my toes off,’’ Shuler said. “If they removed the first three toes, I felt I’d be OK. The doctors wouldn’t do it. So that was it.’’
The same injury that ended the careers of two great NFL running backs, Calvin Hill and Larry Csonka, had derailed Shuler.
“That was the hardest thing to do. I had no choice. I had to retire,’’ Shuler said. “There was no way to physically play again. I had no balance.’’
He had no future in the game he loved. It crushed him.
“I wanted to be a Hall of Famer,’’ Shuler said. “I wanted to play in Pro Bowls. I wanted to do all those things. To have gone through high school and college on such a paved road, then just hit a wall.’’
Gruden tried to put a dent in the wall by offering Shuler a chance to remain with Oakland as an assistant coach. Shuler said it was an “awesome’’ gesture, but he declined.
“I felt I had to remove myself from the game to mentally overcome the game,’’ Shuler said.
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