LA Rams’ RB Cam Akers’ injury: the 411 plus a ‘lil Greek mythology

Achilles tendon wasn’t stuck in the Styx

Tear this cable, and woe is you. The scalpel’s a’coming for you, now. Surgery and a long rehab loom ahead. It can be one of the most crippling of foot injuries, which is followed by months and months of rehab. A mere layman will recover after surgery and resume ambulating around this planet as before, but a professional running back has a much steeper hill to climb in rehab after surgery to return to form.

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Why do we call it the Achilles tendon in the first place? I guess we can thank (blame?) the Ancient Greeks for that. The ancient Greek mythological figure Achilles’ only vulnerability was his heel because that was the only part of his body that was not submerged into the protective waters of the River Styx when his mother held him by his heel. Of course, he fought alongside another warrior, Ajax, a dude who gave up his life to become a household cleanser.

And the 411 on ol’ Achilles was that he was not only the greatest and bravest warrior of the army of King Agamemnon in the Trojan War, but he was also the most handsome. He was the son of Thetis and Peleus, the king of Myrmidons. Peleus was the bravest hero in the Trojan war, according to Greek mythology. Thetis was his mother. She tried to make her son immortal by dipping him in the River Styx, but she bungled up and forgot to dip the little dude a second time into the protective waters so the heel she held him by could get wet too.

Did Achilles really exist? He’s a part of Greek mythology – and that’s the thing about myths. Maybe, maybe not. He mighta’ just been a central character in a made-up story. And while it’s possible there were dudes running around with the name Achilles in history, the original Achilles, the OG Achilles, probably didn’t exist. (at least, as told in Greek myths).

In Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, Achilles is written about as an “Epic hero” throughout the poem. It’s a Greek thing. A lotta “Epicness” going on back then, I guess.

Achilles met his demise from a dude named Paris, the prince of Troy (or was it Bel Air?), who shot him with an arrow to the heel. Well, reports suggest that the sun god Apollo guided that arrow to the vulnerable heel. But since “NFL Insider” Adam Schefter was not on the scene back then to confirm the rumor, who’s to say? And the rest is, as they say, relegated to history.

If Paris Hilton were alive in ancient Greece, her coined phrase would be: “That’s Epic!”