Patriots offensive tackle Calvin Anderson survived malaria, heart issue in 2023

The veteran offensive tackle was able to play just five games in his first year back in New England.

Leading up to their 2023 training camp, the New England Patriots placed offensive tackle Calvin Anderson on the non-football illness list. It was a standard-procedure transaction at that point in their preparation, but still raised concerns about the offseason acquisition and his outlook both in the short and the long term.

Even after he returned to the field in late August, uncertainty remained: What was the mystery illness that sidelined Anderson? And why was he forced to eventually leave the team again after just five games?

A new must-read story by Christopher Price of the Boston Globe finally answers those questions. Anderson was dealing with a near-fatal case of malaria in the summer, and later sustained a heart contusion in practice.

Anderson, who began his NFL career with a brief stint as a Patriot in 2019, re-joined the club via a two-year contract in free agency. The expectation was that he would compete for the starting right tackle position with veteran Riley Reiff, and the early signs were quite promising: Anderson appeared to be a frontrunner for the job in the spring.

However, a mere four days before New England’s first practice of training camp and after just having returned from a trip to Africa, Anderson’s outlook drastically changed.

Anderson’s body temperature spiked wildly in the early-morning hours of July 22. Sherée used Instacart to track down a thermometer. She stuck it in Calvin’s mouth, waking him up. After a minute, the temperature popped up: 104.5 degrees.

“I had to double-check it to be sure,” she said. “We’re not going to play around with this anymore. We’re now going to the hospital. He was like, ‘No, no. I don’t have time for this.’ I literally was like, ‘No. We’re going to the hospital. Now.’ I really persisted.”

Once at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, a series of tests determined that Anderson was dealing with malaria after he had suffered a mosquito bite in Nigeria. According to a league spokesman it was the first ever recorded case of an NFL player getting diagnosed with the disease.

At that point, doctors gave him a 50-50 chance of survival.

Anderson remained in hospital for four-plus days, and later spent virtually all of the summer sidelined as well. Along the way, he tried to put as much work in as he possibly could given his condition.

“I stayed mentally plugged in,” Anderson told reporters at the time of his late-August return. “This sport, at this level, requires so much more than just your physical prowess. So, you got to stay in if you’re going to be a part of making the team better. And so, I was able to stay in it mentally, and luckily I have great coaches — [Adrian Klemm], Billy Yates — guys who can help make sure you’re on the tip of the mental stuff.

“Whatever you can do, you do at the maximum. I had to learn that the hard way, obviously, with this situation.”

Eventually, Anderson returned to the field and took his spot in the starting lineup. However, he struggled to adapt to playing again following his serious bout with malaria and eventually ended up demoted to a reserve role.

He continued to work behind the scenes, hopeful to increase his role again. Then, in early November, he suffered another setback.

[T]oward the end of the week, Anderson was hit by a defensive teammate. Suddenly, his world was spinning again.

“I get hit in the chest in kind of an awkward way,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it. We kept going.

“I started feeling like a chest pain that I had never felt before. I asked one of the trainers, ‘Hey, I’m having a little chest pain. I don’t know what it is. Do you guys have any thoughts about that?’ …

Anderson went on to describe the issue as a heart contusion, even though the cause of the issue was unclear.

“[J]ust imagine how rare this is,” he told Price. “We get hit in the chest on every single play as an O-lineman. It just so happened that it was a combination of the position I was in and not seeing it, it caused temporary damage to my heart. Like a bruise. At that point, the level of frustration I had was just through the roof.”

The Patriots placed Anderson on injured reserve shortly thereafter, ending his 2023 season after he had played in just five games with two starts. As the team struggled with performance en route to a 4-13 season, Anderson himself struggled mentally.

Eventually, however, he managed to overcome what was a lost season. In March, he took to social media to announce his return.

“As I navigated the intricacies of that encounter, I found myself again,” he wrote at the time. “I found my purpose again. I had to walk with God in order to turn devastation into transformation. Now, as I return to the field after unprecedented adversity kept me away from the game I love, I do so with enhanced wisdom and gratitude. And I do so as me, in my most authentic expression.”

Anderson was an active participant in the Patriots’ offseason workout program. The expectation is that he will compete for a starting role again this summer.

Please make sure to head over to the Boston Globe to read the full story of Anderson’s illness and recovery.