Cam Skattebo considered retirement after rookie leg injury, now embraces John Harbaugh's coaching style

New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo is only a year into his NFL career, but he's already contemplated retirement. Skattebo told Key Adams on her show Up & Adams that he considered walking away from football entirely during his rehabilitation from a gruesome leg injury that ended his rookie season.

"Probably a month in," Skattebo said when asked if he ever considered hanging up his spikes. "Like, the first month was kind of like, 'Damn. Do I really want to do this?' And then ... it was seven games, you know? I got to go back and play. There's no shot. If it was the end of the year and I was like, 'OK, I'm over this?' [But] I didn't feel that way at all."

Skattebo was just emerging as the Giants' lead back toward the end of last October when he suffered a right ankle dislocation, an open tibia fracture and a ruptured deltoid ligament that ended his season. If he had kept a promise he had made to himself before he was drafted, it would have ended his career before it had a chance to get on track.

"Coming out of college, going in the NFL, I gave myself one rule, and it was, if I ever got a major injury, I was done playing," he said. "That happened seven games into my career, so it kind of sucked. But I think that really helped me find who I am as a player and as a person.

"I was able to sit at home for 14 hours a day, doing absolutely nothing, for weeks on end. So, just finding who I was, finding my happiness, finding the person I wanted to be on and off the field. And I think that's something I've built over the last 9-10 months."

Relationship with John Harbaugh

Skattebo appears to be healthy heading into his second season, where he's expected to team with Tyrone Tracy, Devin Singletary and the recently signed Najee Harris in the Giants' backfield. Under new head coach John Harbaugh, we don't yet know what type of role he will play. After some recent speculation that he and Harbaugh don't get along, though, Skattebo made sure to make clear that that's not the case at all.

"He's awesome," Skattebo said. "He's just tough, man. He's keeping the way you need to coach football, in football. A lot of the guys nowadays, they get all this money and they get older and they don't want to practice hard and be in full pads every day. He;'s brought this culture where we're gonna practice, we're gonna practice every minute that the NFL allows us to, and we're gonna do it in pads because that's how football is played. And I really enjoy that. I like the fact that he brings that to the table."

Regarding a comment where Harbaugh referred to Skattebo's energy as a potentially "infectious disease" that needed to be directed in a positive way, Skattebo said, "Me and Harbs, we're on the same page. We love each other. Me and him, we talk every single day. There's no bad blood between us. I think that comment was more so that what I did was infectious, an infectious disease in that moment - not that I'm an infectious disease person.

"And I think that's what people didn't take from that. I think that's how he meant it. 'Look, he did something bad and that can lead to more bad things so we need to direct that in a positive standpoint.' And I took the same thing. We didn't even really talk about it."