“Usually I do like slightly meditation routine by a bonfire in my yard. Lengthy story brief, [I] ran out of my regular lighter fluid, used a unique one and it blew up in my face,” Njoku stated. “Now, thoughts you, my eyes had been huge open when the entire thing occurred, so I ought to be blind proper now. However fortunately, God is nice. It was sort of, not exhilarating, nevertheless it was a rush, you recognize? Like that battle or flight second got here up.”
The 2017 first-round decide remarkably did not miss a sport after the incident till an unrelated Week 18 absence, ending with the very best season of his profession.
Njoku ended the 12 months because the crew’s chief in receptions (career-high 81) and receiving touchdowns (career-high six), whereas inserting second in targets (123) and receiving yards (882) — each of which had been private excessive marks as effectively. Njoku made his first Professional Bowl to cap off the robust season.
Regardless of struggling burns to his arm, face and fingers within the Sept. 29 scare, Njoku suited up in opposition to the Baltimore Ravens two days later and posted a team-leading six catches and 46 receiving yards.
Previous to the sport, he wore a masks that lined his face whereas strolling into the stadium, to forestall anybody from seeing what had occurred.
“Everybody thought I might personally obtained (the masks) made, you recognize, from a unique nation or no matter. However I simply Door Dashed it from Get together Metropolis,” Njoku instructed Russini.
“You had been simply prepared for Halloween?” the insider quipped.
“Yeah, I imply, however with that being stated, each time I took the masks off, elements of my pores and skin or my face would come off with it,” Njoku defined. “So it was a really restricted time that I may put it on, take it off.”
