JJ Watt says staph infection in knee could have cost him his leg

J.J. Watt has dealt with numerous injuries over the past year, and the Houston Texans star revealed on Tuesday that one of them could have resulted in him having a leg amputated.

In a feature he wrote for The Players Tribune, Watt recapped all that has gone wrong with his body dating back to last season. While we knew about the broken hand, torn abs and herniated discs, Watt says his “scariest” health issue was a staph infection in his knee.

One Friday night last season, I noticed some weird bumps on my knee. I thought it was a rash, so I went and asked our trainer if he had any cream.

He looked at my knee and said, “That looks really bad. We have to get you to the hospital right now.”

I thought he was joking at first. But then I could see in his face that he was serious and actually a bit panicked. As it turned out, he saved me in a big way. At the hospital, they immediately put me on three hours of the strongest antibiotic IVs. I went straight from the hospital to the team plane and we flew to Jacksonville. Once we landed, there were two more hours of antibiotics that night and two more the next morning before the game. The medicine had completely drained me, but I played — and we won.

I remember walking into the locker room after the game and just collapsing on the training table. My body was completely shot, with nothing left to give. As the trainers hooked me up to an IV, one of the guys walking past joked, “You alive?” Later that day on the flight back to Houston, one of the team doctors told me that if our trainer hadn’t recognized the problem so quickly, I could have lost my leg.

We know how dangerous staph infections can be, but it always gives terrifying context when a person talks about losing a limb. Watt is fortunate he noticed what he thought was a rash and asked a trainer about it.

Watt also reiterated in the piece that he contemplated retirement, noting that he had never undergone major surgery before and suddenly had to have three in one year.

Aside from rumors that he is dating this pro soccer player, we haven’t really heard much about Watt since he began his social media hiatus after undergoing season-ending back surgery. Texans fans will be happy to hear that he is no longer thinking about calling it quits and instead feels like he is “just getting started.”