Kam Chancellor reveals he almost faced amputation after historically cold playoff game

The game that was too close for comfort, too cold for comfort, and apparently too cold for fingernails either.

It was 2016, at the University of Minnesota. The Seattle Seahawks battled the Minnesota Vikings, but the fight against the elements was the bigger challenge.

The box score will tell you there were 52,000 fans in attendance, but those fans and players will tell of a different number: six degrees below zero with a -25 degree wind chill.

In a recent piece by ESPN, Kam Chancellor spoke out about that game, and the team escaped even greater injury risk with their star safety that hadn’t been revealed. As it turns out, a few days after the game, Chancellor noticed black marks on his fingertips before notifying the team staff, who ultimately got the diagnosis of frostbite from doctors.

“I had never had frostbite,” Chancellor told ESPN in a recent interview. “I was like, ‘Wait, are y’all going to cut my fingers off?’”

Chancellor wondered how he had sustained the injury even while wearing gloves. But doctors explained to him that sweat inside his gloves likely froze on his fingertips, resulting in frostbite.

“You’re out there playing in that cold weather and you’re out there sweating,” he said. “And then once you take a timeout, you’re standing or sitting down, now all that sweat is on you and it’s cold as hell. So, sweat makes it worse.”

Amputation was in fact considered – instead, they gave Chancellor a full three-month healing regimen to restore full color and sensation to his fingers. And still, one of his fingernails fell off.

The players uniformly agreed, that game was unpleasant.

It’s fun to imagine whether a “Three-Finger Kam” would have been more or less intimidating on the gridiron.

Glad we didn’t lose ya, Mr. Chancellor.