Jared Lorenzen still has hefty love of football

Laken Litman | USA TODAY Sports

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — In one week Jared Lorenzen has gone from long-forgotten NFL quarterback to Internet sensation to player having knee and ankle surgery Wednesday.

Don't remember Lorenzen? He was Eli Manning's backup with the New York Giants when they won the Super Bowl after the 2007 season, Lorenzen's last in the NFL.

It turns out he's still playing, for the Northern Kentucky River Monsters of the Continental Indoor Football League, as video of Lorenzen showed last week in a season-opening win at the Bluegrass Warhorses in Lexington.

The video went viral in large part because most quarterbacks are not larger than their linemen. Lorenzen, aka the Hefty Lefty, is 6-4, 320. He would play, he said, "til I can't."

That moment might have arrived.

With 11:23 to go in the second quarter of Sunday's home game against the Erie (Pa.) Explosion, Lorenzen was helped off the field by trainers and teammates after a defender dived for his legs.

"I knew it as soon as he (hit) it," said Lorenzen, who broke his leg and suffered torn ankle ligaments. "I could feel that crunch."

The pain was severe, and painkillers weren't working.

"I was popping them like Kit Kats and they weren't doing anything," Lorenzen said as he was preparing for surgery.

Lorenzen, who said he weighed 13 pounds at birth, tells himself every year he's finished with football. But he can't kick the habit.

He'll turn 33 on Friday. Are his playing days over?

"I could see Jared playing football when he's 75 years old," said Dale Mueller, who coached Lorenzen at the Kentucky football factory known as Highlands High School in the late 1990s.

But Lorenzen, who has an 11-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, isn't sure. He can't even think about it right now. He knows he has at least six to eight weeks before he can put pressure on his leg to start walking again.

"I'm just worried about finishing this up," said Lorenzen, who has played indoor football sporadically since his NFL career ended in 2008. "(Football) is down on the list of priorities right now."

NOT ABOUT THE MONEY

As Lorenzen gained Internet fame last week, his phone didn't stop ringing. On the Tuesday after the opener, he had interview requests from CBS Sports, ESPN and local radio all day.

But now that he's sidelined, the calls will subside.

"I knew that viral stuff was going to go away quick," he said, laughing. "If anything, this (injury) prolonged it. It is what it is. I'm not concerned about it. I'd rather be out of the spotlight."

He has to take time off from his full-time job in sales at ProSource, an office technology company in Cincinnati. Lorenzen said his boss, who was at Sunday's game, will allow him to ease back into work after the injury.

Continuing with football is certainly not about the money. His River Monsters paycheck is $200 a week.

"I try not to live with regrets," he said. "The last thing I want is to look back when I'm 50 and go, 'Why didn't you?'"

Lorenzen was a local celebrity in high school, leading Highlands to a state championship in 1998. He was, Mueller said, an outstanding athlete who played football and basketball.

"He just dominated," Mueller said. "His senior year we were 15-0, scored 801 points. Jared set a whole new standard for being a quarterback in his career here."

Lorenzen was recruited by several colleges. But coach Hal Mumme told him he would throw the ball 50 to 60 times a game at Kentucky, so he became a Wildcat.

Lorenzen remains in the top five in the Southeastern Conference record books for completions in a season (321) and a career (862).

His goal was to have a lengthy career in the NFL, but that didn't pan out.

MAKING WEIGHT

Lorenzen was cut by the Giants the summer after their Super Bowl win against the New England Patriots, went to the Indianapolis Colts training camp in 2008 and made it to the final list before being cut.

He is not sure if his weight was the reason he didn't make it in the league in the long run: "I was always around (the weight) where they wanted me," he said.

With the Giants, that meant weighing in between 288 and 292 pounds. He said players were fined $450 per pound every day they didn't make weight.

"So you tend to be there," he said.

Lorenzen said Giants coach Tom Coughlin held weigh-ins every Friday all the way until the Super Bowl. The quarterback had a specific regimen.

"Friday mornings were always long for me because I'd get in the sauna and sweat it out," he said. "The most I had to lose was five pounds in four hours, and that was hell.

"I'd come in and have tight, long spandex, sweatpants and another pair of sweatpants. Then I'd wear an undershirt, a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a loose long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt and then a hoodie, and then go in the sauna."

He would rotate between the sauna, which he said could be as hot as 160 degrees, and the elliptical machine to get his heart rate up. Then he would have a ham-and-cheese omelet and orange juice — "Or whatever the chef was cooking that day," he said — and go to practice.

With the River Monsters, Lorenzen doesn't have to make weight. Players were passing around candy before kickoff Sunday, and Lorenzen had a package of Dots.

FAN FAVORITE

There were perhaps 1,300 fans at the Bank of Kentucky Center to watch the River Monsters take the field Sunday in their scaled, lime-green jerseys. Many came to see Lorenzen. Him being out for the rest of the season — and maybe longer — could have a negative impact on attendance.

"I hope not," Lorenzen said. "But it's always a fear."

Team owner Jill Chitwood is thinking positively.

"He was really the key to getting people to come back," she said. "But they will come even without Jared because they know the product that we put on the field and the talent that we have is really, really good."

Even so, the love for Lorenzen was omnipresent.

After he threw his first touchdown pass of the game, a couple of young fans in the stands shouted, "Jared! Jared!" and had a discussion about whether he would kick the extra point. He was the holder.

Before Lorenzen was injured in the second quarter, fans chirped, "Go Hefty Lefty!" One joked, "You can't stop him, only hope to contain him."

The Explosion did stop him, however.

But Lorenzen is a laid-back guy who was in good spirits before surgery. He might play again, he might not. But he'll always be around football, whether it's coaching high school quarterbacks or his son.

"I will never be away from the game," he said. "It's something that just won't ever happen."