Deestroying‘s first game as a professional football player did not end the way he hoped. Though the sports creator’s San Antonio Brahmas defeated the Memphis Showboats, he was placed on the injured reserve list after suffering a neck injury.
The Brahmas, who play in the newly-revived United Football League (UFL), made a splash back in January when they signed Deestroying (whose real name is Donald de la Haye) and invited him to compete for the team’s starting kicker job. De La Haye shared his training camp experience through a series called Project NFL, and he earned a roster spot at the end of the show’s sixth episode.
Episode eight of Project NFL chronicled the Brahmas first game of the season. De La Haye got plenty of action on special teams, but he hurt himself while tackling an opposing returner after a kickoff. He was diagnosed with multiple fractured vertebrae in his neck and placed on IR. Due to league rules, he will have to sit out at least five weeks before he is eligible to return to action. His injury is serious enough that it will keep him out beyond that point — likely for the remainder of the UFL season.
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De La Haye took to Instagram to lament his injury and thank his fans for their support. “[The doctor] said I’m a lucky man cause it could have been way worse,” he wrote in an Instagram Story. “I’m just gonna be stuck in a neck brace for the next 3 months.” His next Story shows him rocking his “neck brace drip,” which he described as “kinda tuff,” so it’s nice to see he’s in good spirits.
Years before he ever took the field with the Brahmas, De La Haye broke out on YouTube, where his eligibility battle with the NCAA made national news (and inspired the NIL athletes who came after him). After college, De La Haye built the Deestroying channel into one of YouTube’s biggest sports hubs. It reaches nearly six million subscribers and has received more than 1.3 billion lifetime views to date.
As the title of Project NFL indicates, De La Haye’s ultimate goal is to become a kicker in the world’s top pro football league. His injury is a setback, but don’t expect him to give up on his dream. All he has to do now is grind even harder, and that’s something he knows how to do.
