Chargers linebacker Manti Te'o's progress set back by broken foot

The news of Chargers linebacker Manti Te'o's broken foot wasn't met with a lot of fanfare. Funny how that has worked.

Remember about 18 months ago when Te'o was supposed to be The Giant Huge Big NFL Distraction? Just like Michael Sam was going to be this year, in case you've forgotten about him too. Te'o settled in as a normal football player with the Chargers – let's please remember this when everyone starts bloviating over the next "distraction!" storyline – but the former Notre Dame star's problem has been health.

Specifically, his feet have been a major problem.

Te'o will be out for an undisclosed period, though he wasn't placed on season-ending injured reserve. He has a fracture in his right foot, the same foot in which he suffered a broken bone last August. That injury that caused him to miss the first three regular-season games of his rookie year and required surgery after the season. He also dealt with issues to his left foot. He sprained it in San Diego's season preseason game this year, and he missed the final two preseason games.

Te'o, whose 2012 Notre Dame season was probably the most decorated of any defensive player in college football history (he finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting, a fact that was utterly obscured by a fake girlfriend story that broke after the season), was starting to play well. He had 19 tackles in three games. He ranked 11th among all NFL inside linebackers in Pro Football Focus' grades through three weeks.

He was showing the form that made him a star at Notre Dame. And now this.

"It was very disappointing for me," Te'o told ESPN.com. "I was starting to get rolling, starting to get more comfortable in there. And I was able to make a couple more plays, and be in situations to make plays.

"I don't know how many weeks it's going to take, but in a couple weeks I'll be healthy. I'll be ready to go. But there's other people -- kids even -- that are battling things where they won't heal from things. And when you put it in that perspective and think about it in that light, what I'm going through is nothing. I've just got to keep working."

Te'o will have to work back from this injury. Hopefully when he returns he can continue to develop into a very good NFL linebacker, even if nobody is paying much attention anymore.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdowncorner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

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