Friday, May 12, 2000

Time for rehab

Deion’s decision to cut short his baseball season is good news for some NFL team

By Ron Pollack, Editor-in-chief

The word out of baseball circles is that Deion Sanders may be done with baseball for this season. The Cincinnati Reds have agreed to let Sanders return to his home in Dallas, where he will rehabilitate his right knee.

Although it is still possible that Sanders could return to the baseball diamond this season, it is considered unlikely.

That is spectacular news for whatever NFL team Sanders plays for this season. Last year Sanders was not the Deion of old because of injuries. Sanders had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Jan. 24. He was still hobbled when he reported for spring training.

Had Sanders kept pushing the envelope, the odds were that he would have been much less than 100 percent when he reported for football than he now figures to be when it’s time for him to don a football uniform.

Given how much money he figures to be asking for from a prospective football team, that figured to be a dangerous mix. Now, however, he can nurse himself to better health.

That means he will be far more effective than had he gone through an entire baseball season and then jumped into football.

The Redskins are the team most people seem to think Deion will end up with. If that happens, they figure to get an even better Deion than anyone would have thought a week ago when baseball still was part of the equation.

As if the Redskins needed anything else to go right for them this offseason. They have improved as much as any team in the league and now might be catching a Deion break.

Whether it’s the Redskins of some other team, whomever Sanders plays for this season figures to get a player in better position to return to his old form than could have previously been expected.

The Archives
1999 - 2000 Season