Langi just grateful to be playing football

FLORHAMPARK, N.J. — Every time Jets linebacker Harvey Langi steps on the field for a practice or a game, he takes a deep breath and appreciates that he’s still able to play football.

When he was a rookie with the Patriots in 2017, Langi and his wife, Cassidy, were in a terrible car collision. The driver of the other vehicle had an open bottle of alcohol and three different prescription drugs in his car.

Langi suffered injuries to his head, neck, back and knees. His wife broke both hips, multiple ribs, sustained a concussion and needed 15 staples to close the wound on her head.

Langi said at the time he didn’t know for three hours how his wife was because they were in different hospitals.

Playing football was the last thing on his mind. He just wanted to know if his wife was going to be all right and that they both would live.

“That personally just ruined me because you don’t know any information,” Langi said on a Zoom call Wednesday afternoon. “Once I knew we were OK, it changed me as a person to not take anything for granted, the things that are important.

“Your family, your friends, your relationships — you got to keep those tight. Call your parents, call your brothers and sisters, tell them you love them.”

Once Langi realized his wife was all right and he was too, he started thinking about returning to football.

Langi, 28, was told by doctors and other people close to him that it would be difficult to play again, and he should really think about it. Langi said it crossed his mind that he may have to be an assistant coach or a graduate assistant somewhere. But he was driven to resume playing.

“In my mind, it was always I’m going to get back on that field somehow, some way,” Langi said.

Now he’s starting at inside linebacker for Jets.

“Once I knew that I was alive and I could move my body and move my feet, I was like, ‘You know what? Whatever anybody says, I’m going to overcome this and I’m going to work hard to get back on the field,’ ” Langi said. “Now being back on the field, before a game or before practice, I take a deep breath and go back to, man, I can’t believe I’m playing this game again, and get that perspective of this is awesome.

“I’m super blessed and grateful that I get to be on this field again. I can’t just sit back and let this opportunity slip away.”