Jason Pierre-Paul's hand has been a mystery for months.
The New York Giants' defensive end injured his hand in a fireworks accident on July 4, then basically went into hiding. Even the team wasn't allowed to see him for a long time. There was a report, off a leaked medical record, that he lost an index finger (which you can see, he did). A few photos shot at long range eventually surfaced. His teammates were taking a peek on Wednesday, when Pierre-Paul finally returned to practice.
Pierre-Paul met with the media on Friday, and along with his comments was the first direct look at his severely injured hand.
Clearly this is a significant injury Pierre-Paul is dealing with. It's hard to figure out how his football career will be affected. Defensive ends use their hands a lot, and Pierre-Paul will have to change his whole game to adjust to this injury. He was asked how it would affect him.
"Hopefully it doesn't," Pierre-Paul said, according to the transcript from NJ.com. "I'm still the same Jason Pierre-Paul. The skill set hasn't changed. I've probably gotten even better. I'm ready to play football and help my team win." 
Earlier this week Pierre-Paul signed a one-year deal with the Giants. When he met with the media, Pierre-Paul didn't want to talk much about the incident itself, but shed some light on why he found himself in that situation that night.
"It wasn't frightening at all. I'm not going to go into detail with it, it's something [the fireworks] I did every year for the kids," Pierre-Paul said, according to NJ.com's transcript. "Because when I was growing up, I was less fortunate to have fireworks. And it just happened. I did it for six, seven years now. And it happened. It is what it is. I've lived and learned from it and moved on."
And Pierre-Paul has obviously been through a lot since July 4, but he put his accident in perspective very well on Friday.
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