2005-09-12

Injury Report: Why it sucks to tear your ACL

Two big injuries in the NFC yesterday, Packer's receiver Javon Walker and Panther's defensive tackle Kris Jenkins. Both players tore their ACLs and will be out for the rest of the season.

Tearing your ACL is one of the worst, and most common, sports injuries. It takes at least a year to rehab from the injury, and it's going to require surgery and months of rehab before you can get back to playing shape.

A buddy of mine tore his ACL our senior year of high school. He tore on a run-of-the-mill play during our football practice, and at the time he didn't really know how bad it was. At first it felt really bad, but you can still walk with a torn ACL, so he just figured it was a sprain and sat out the rest of practice. If he had tried to run any more plays in practice, he could have torn up more muscles in his knee and risked never being able to walk again.

Anyway, these injuries are bad news for Brett Favre and the Panther's Super Bowl band wagon (which includes myself).

Besides getting screwed out of the big NFL contract Green Bay told Walker he had to play for this season, this news pretty much guarantees the Packers will be competing with the Bears for the worst team in the division. Walker had emerged into the home run threat for the Packers, and stretched the field for the Packer's power running game.

Jenkins is the second best player on one of the top five defensive lines in the NFL. His absence from the d-line due to injuries last season was part of the reason the Panthers started out 1-7. I still think the Panthers can make it back to the Super Bowl this season (remember Booger McFarland missed the second half of the Buc's Super Bowl season), but the road to Super Bowl XL will be much more difficult for Carolina. All of the sudden the Eagles look like a good bet to repeat as NFC Champs.

1 comment:

The Polish Prognosticator said...

Good analysis,

I poste a link to your blog on mine.

Http://sedgecourtjournalfootball.blogspot.com

GO COLTS!!!!!!