Texans WR John Metchie III to miss rookie season with leukemia

John Metchie III (University of Alabama/YouTube, Wikimedia Commons)

According to the Associated Press on Sunday, Houston Texans wide receiver John Metchie III of Brampton, Ontario, Canada, will miss the entire 2022 National Football League season due to the fact he has been diagnosed with leukemia. As a result, he will not have a full season of game action and to work with rising Texans quarterback Davis Mills. 

The form of Metchie III’s leukemia is promyelocytic leukemia, where fortunately the cure rate is extremely high. Promyelocytic leukemia occurs when “cells in the bone marrow that produce blood cells do not develop and function normally”according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. 

In three seasons with the Alabama Crimson Tide from 2019 to 2021, Metchie III was considered one of the top National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I wide receivers and one of the best NCAA Division I football players from Canada. He had 155 catches for 2081 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Over the last two seasons, Metchie III has won the Jon Cornish Trophy, presented to the top Canadian in the NCAA. In 2020, Metchie had 55 catches for 916 yards and six touchdowns, and in 2021, had 96 catches for 1142 yards and eight touchdowns. Metchie III’s 96 catches were the eighth most in the NCAA this past year.

Metchie III is one of two Canadians to win the Jon Cornish Trophy twice. The other is Nathan Rourke of Victoria, British Columbia, who won the trophy in 2017 and 2018 while playing of the University of Ohio. Rourke is now the starting quarterback of the British Columbia Lions in the Canadian Football League. Jon Cornish meanwhile was the CFL’s most outstanding player in 2013. A running back, Cornish played his college football at the University of Kansas.

Metchie III won a College Football National Championship with the Crimson Tide in 2021. Alabama beat Ohio State 52-24. Metchie III was then the Texans’s second pick, 44th overall, in the 2022 NFL Draft.

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