Heisman Trophy winner and Louisiana State University quarterback Jayden Daniels may be uniquely talented at football, but lately he's gotten noticed for a totally different unique attribute: his elbow.
A photo of Daniels in a November 4, 2023 game against Alabama has the whole internet slack-jawed and scratching its collective head.
The photo was recently tweeted in a report about the NFL teams potentially interested in signing Daniels, who is one of the hottest commodities in this year's draft.
But all anyone could see was Daniel's throwing-arm elbow, which looked like it might have sprouted an elbow of its own.
Daniels' elbow doesn't so much look like an elbow but more like his arm bones just kept growing past his joint and jutting through his skin—it looks not only bizarre, but downright painful.
But it's likely not, and it turns out there's a fairly simply explanation.
Sports medicine physician Dr. Jesse Morse does not treat Daniels, but he took to X, aka Twitter, to give his best doctor's guess about what's up with Daniel's weird elbow: a condition called olecranon bursitis.
Morse explained that something as simple as banging your elbow on a hard surface can cause the condition, which he described as:
"...an inflammation of the bursa, which is a sac that is usually empty and is there to protect the bone underneath. We have them in several joints including the elbow and the knee."
He went on to describe the condition as a "protective mechanism" to prevent further damage that is "more annoying than concerning" and, while treatable, is sometimes impossible to fully be rid of.
Thankfully, Morse said it rarely has any affect on a player's abilities and is usually "literally just a visual oddity."
And "visual oddity" was an understatement when it came to Twitter's hilarious response to Daniel's olecranon bursitis.
Amid the uproar, Daniels himself took to Twitter to address his elbow, saying it is "perfectly fine" after several football fans on Twitter suggested he should be knocked out of the top NFL draft choices.
Daniels is still predicted to be at the top of this year's draft list anyway, along with USC's Caleb Williams.
@sama/X
