What will that prove?

Shawne Merriman is an idiot. Look, I don’t care how brave and/heroic you want to seem by playing through two torn knee ligaments, this is not going to end well.
 
“To be as simple as possible, I just want to play football,” Merriman said. “That’s what it comes down to. I know what’s on the table, I know what’s on the line. I put a lot of work in this and I want to play.”
 
This guy does not know what’s on the table! If he honestly realizes there is a fairly good chance he’ll be injured further and that he won’t be able to use his speed or agility up to his personal standard, well that’s knowing what’s on the table and I’m not sure anyone could ever risk walking with a limp for the rest of their lives to play football over surgery.
 
Alright, it’s a lot of people’s dreams to play in the NFL but Merriman would miss one season tops. This is could become a career-ending thing if something as common as a guy falling on you in pileup happens to Shawne.
 
One has to think that this brain fart is a result of the steroids that Merriman used in the past diminishing his cognitive capacity. If (when) he gets hurt, it will set the Chargers back further then than it would now seeing how they would have a better chance to prepare for a season without the talented OLB now, then if a devastating knee injury happened in a game down the road.
 
Bottom line is that this will end poorly and I would already start preparing for this coming injury by not having Merriman involved in as many schemes as possible and holding him out of as many practices as I could. This is just an idiotic call by a potentially great player.