A player broke into the scene with one of the most historic individual performances the league had seen in over three decades. In a single game, he returned a punt for a touchdown and recovered a fumble for another score, becoming just the fourth player in league history to accomplish that feat in the same game. 

The then-Green Bay Packers defensive back, Will Blackmon, had announced himself to the world in emphatic fashion. Years later, he added a Super Bowl ring to that legacy. But the road between those two moments was paved with injuries that quietly cost him everything he should have earned.

“I lost eight figures from that knee injury, and it just made me resilient as hell, man,” the Giants Super Bowl champ revealed on No Free Lunch with Ndamukong Suh. “I remember I went to church and Pastor Rick Warren was like, turn your pain into someone else’s gain.”

That is exactly what Blackmon set out to do. But to get there, he first had to survive a career that kept breaking. Before the 2007 season even began, Blackmon was entering his second year with the Packers when he broke his foot during a team practice, costing him time before he had a chance to build on his momentum.

The most brutal blow came in Week 4 of the 2009 season, when Blackmon tore the ACL in his left knee. Of all the seasons he played, his healthiest and most complete was 2008, sandwiched between those two significant setbacks. 

When Blackmon talks about losing eight figures, he was not referring to a canceled deal. He is talking about the contracts, opportunities, and earning potential that never materialized because he wasn’t healthy long enough to demand them. 

“The stuff I went through, like I can share that to help anybody. It just made me insanely resilient, which I think is so invaluable because I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do,” Blackmon added.

Over the course of 10 seasons, Blackmon played in 96 games, started 30, and missed 64 regular-season games. Every stretch of missed time was a stretch of lost leverage at the negotiating table. 

After signing a one-year deal worth $1.17 million with the Giants in 2010, Blackmon reached seven figures just once more in his career. He signed a two-year deal worth $1.87 million with the Commanders in 2014. Every other contract he signed ranged between $600,000 and $950,000, never crossing that seven-figure threshold. 

Yet none of that erased what Blackmon built on the field. In Week 14 of the 2007 season, he made history against the Oakland Raiders with his punt return and fumble return touchdowns. He became the first player to accomplish that feat since Lemar Parrish did it in 1974. 

The Giants then added the crowning moment to his resume. In the 2011 season, the Giants finished 9-7, won the NFC East division, and advanced to Super Bowl XLVI to face the Patriots. Blackmon contributed a kickoff return and a punt return in that game, and the Giants beat the Patriots 21-17 to bring the Lombardi Trophy back to New York.

After that Super Bowl run, Blackmon went on to have stints with the Seahawks, Jaguars, and Redskins. When those chapters closed, he spent two more years trying to latch on with a team but could not make a final 53-man roster. Eventually, he put his cleats away. Not because no one wanted him, but because something more important had changed.

Will Blackmon’s life after hanging up his cleats

In 2018, Blackmon signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League, but was released there as well. That was the moment he decided to walk away from the game for good. When he explained his reasoning, it had nothing to do with his body.

“I didn’t leave because I was physically not able to play any longer; I left because it wasn’t fun for me anymore,” Blackmon said. “If I was going to live in other states, travel all the time, and be away from my family, I wanted to have fun. And when it got to the point where it wasn’t fun, I decided to move on.”

Since then, Blackmon has built a second life. He has worked as a host on Fox Sports Radio and founded his own wine subscription company, Wine MVP. A year ago, he joined Crean Lutheran High School as a position coach. 

Most recently, he served as an on-air analyst for NFL Network on Good Morning Football during the last season. Through every one of those chapters, Blackmon credits football for giving him the tools to succeed beyond it.

“I think the biggest thing that it did was help me build good relationships; it’s the only way I was able to last as long as I did in the NFL. Even when I was released, injured, or dealt with any controversy, I never took it personal and I knew it was business,” Blackmon said.

Will Blackmon tried everything to bounce back from those injuries, and in many ways, he did. But they did take a lasting toll on the football career he could have had. What makes his story worth telling is that he seems fully determined to turn that pain into something bigger off the field, and by every measure, he already has.