Cardinals starter to miss games after suffering gruesome burns in cooking accident that was almost ‘deadly’

Arizona Cardinals cornerback Antonio Hamilton won a starting job in training camp, but he won’t be on the field in Week 1 after injuring himself in a freak cooking accident at his house. 

When the Cardinals announced their 53-man roster this week, one of the biggest surprises was Hamilton being placed on the non-football injury list, which requires him to sit out the first four weeks of the season. After shining in training camp, it wasn’t clear how Hamilton got injured, but he revealed the details this week. 

According to the corner, he suffered multiple second-degree burns on the lower half of his body during a cooking accident that took place on Aug. 22. It was such a serious accident that it could have ‘ended up deadly,’ according to Hamilton. 

“Had the greatest camp of my career and last Monday I had a accident that could’ve ended up deadly for me and my family,” Hamilton wrote on Twitter this week. “But instead I got the short end of it by having my feet severely burned (2nd degree). It was literally a freak accident and God spared me to only have these injuries.”

According to NFL.com, the accident involved a fryer and Hamilton had to be taken to the hospital after badly burning himself with cooking oil. If you want to see what Hamilton’s second-degree burns look like, you can check out the photo he posted on Twitter by clicking here. 

As Hamilton noted, he was having one of the best training camps of his career. Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury even recently revealed that Hamilton had played well enough to earn a starting spot on Arizona’s defense. 

“It’s disappointing for him,” Kingsbury said of the injury, via one of the team’s official reporters. “He had earned a starting role.”

Earning a starting spot was huge for Hamilton, who has only started four total games over the course of his six-year career. Two of those starts came last season during a year where he saw action in all 17 games for Arizona. 

The loss of a starting corner for the first four weeks of the season is going to put the Cardinals in a tough spot. Not only do they have to face Patrick Mahomes in Week 1, but they follow that up with games against the Raiders and Rams in the two weeks after that. 

The Cardinals pulled off a trade for Raiders cornerback Trayvon Mullen this week, and there’s a chance he could end up filling in for Hamilton while he recovers from his burns. Although it’s not yet clear when Hamilton will return, he’ll have to sit out at least the first four games of the season due to the fact that he was placed on the NFI list.