Lions tight end Eric Ebron, a former first-round pick, is going to have a tough situation on his hands in mid-October. That’s when his girlfriend is scheduled to give birth to the couple’s first son, and also when Ebron and the Lions play the Steelers on “Sunday Night Football.”
And Ebron is hoping (nay demanding?) that the baby comes during the bye week leading up to the game, because he’s decided he is not going to miss the matchup against the Steelers.
“He better come on the bye week ’cause I told her I’m not missing that Steelers game,” Ebron said via the Detroit Free Press. “She can hang that up.”
Each parent to be can make their own respective choice in this regard, but missing out on the birth of a kid, particularly the first one, is not something we would suggest. It’s literally the most magical moment of your life. The Lions play in prime time every year (guaranteed if you’re willing to count Thanksgiving).
There are plenty of caveats here. The baby could be born on Thursday and Ebron could still play. Heck, the baby could be born on Saturday and the tight end could still theoretically suit up. Maybe he won’t miss the actual birth, just need to leave the hospital for a few hours to be present at work for a very important meeting.
Ebron told Dave Birkett of the Free Press that having a kid coming along changes the way he operates — including how he spends his money and just putting things into perspective.
“It’s just different. It just makes you look at a lot of things a lot differently. The way you go about every day, the way you spend your money,” Ebron said. “It counts for everything in life so it just puts a lot of things into perspective and some of things like this, like playing football, what you’re playing for now, it changes that and pretty much your attitude toward attacking every day and things like that. It’s more motivation than it is pressure for me.”
So it’s not like Ebron is unhappy about this. Clearly he’s excited about the idea of having a son and is motivated by the prospect of being a dad.
The one thing he might not want to do is skip the birth, though. It’s one of the bigger moments and something you don’t forget as a father.