Sporting long dreadlocks is always a risky endeavor in the NFL, as long hair gives opposing players more things to grab onto when they're trying to block, tackle or push you around.

It's not a penalty to be tackled by the hair, so players who have long hair need to be extra careful on the field.

Unfortunately for Atlanta Falcons rookie Takkarist McKinley, he found that out the hard way, losing a dread in his team's victory over the Detroit Lions last weekend.

To add insult to what was likely a painful experience for McKinley, he ended up finding the missing dread listed for sale on eBay:

You may think the fan would be willing to give McKinley's hair back to him in exchange for an autograph or something, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

In fact, McKinley followed up his original tweet with another one, saying the bidding had gotten up to $51 for his torn-out dread:

From there, shockingly, the price continued to soar, leaving McKinley to wonder if he should just sell all of his hair and make some serious profit:

Seriously, people were bidding $10,000 for a piece of the rookie's hair! Unfortunately, we never got to find out how high the price would climb, as eBay eventually removed the item when it reached the $11,000 mark:

What happened to the hair is not clear at the moment, but hopefully McKinley will update us on the whereabouts of his precious dread in the near future.

All the weirdness aside, McKinley did record his first sack against the Lions. He's been drawing rave reviews from his teammates and coaches alike, according to AJC.com:

“I expected him to get in and play really hard,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said. “You know, we’ve put him on the right side, he’s played on the left side, so as you go in, especially through your rookie year, you’ve got to kind of have some on-the-job training.

“You have to learn, you have to make some mistakes along the way. His performance, when he looks back at it wouldn’t be all clean, but I think he’ll like how hard he played.”

The Falcons have looked good this year, jumping out to a 3-0 start with wins over the Lions, Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears. Whether they can beat up on teams not in the NFC North remains to be seen, but McKinley and the defense will be a big part of whatever happens in Atlanta this season.