I’ll be honest. This one came about more organically than my articles usually do. In most cases, I have an idea and I go out to research that idea. But this time, I literally just did a random search for “NFL + solar eclipse” and pushed the googlebutton and let it whir. Deep in those results, I found Odell Beckham, Jr. staring at a solar eclipse for 17 seconds.
At first I thought, man, he’s lucky he didn’t have any permanent damage from that. But then I thought, wait, did he? Because the Odell from before and after the Great American Solar Eclipse in August of 2017 is very different.
Okay, maybe that had more to do with the gruesome and gross ankle fracture he suffered in 2017, and then tearing his ACL twice in later years.
But the moral of this story still stands. Do Not stare at a solar eclipse without protective glasses for any amount of time. Even if you’re in a path of totality, if you guess wrong when totality ends, it can cause serious damage to your eyes.
Tomorrow, October 14, is the second major American eclipse event between 2017 and 2024, with the third coming on April 8 of next year. So kids, don’t be like Odell. Get yourself some eclipse shades or make a cool pinhole projector and enjoy!
Don’t . . . stare at the solar eclipse . . . got it.
Odell stared at it. So did the Ravens offense.