New Orleans Saints linebacker Nate Stupar remembers receiving the call last October with an update about the knee injury he suffered in Week 6.
He learned he'd torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee just before reading a bedtime story, "The Pout-Pout Fish," to his daughter.
"I started crying during it," Stupar said last week when recounting that night.
The ACL tear was Stupar's first major injury, and because it forced him to sit out the rest of the season, he missed his first chance to play in the postseason. The closest he'd been previously was when he was on the practice squad with the San Francisco 49ers when they advanced to the Super Bowl after the 2012 season.