Today in the Vikings Monday press conference after yesterday’s embarrassing 34-0 loss to Green Bay Packers, Brad Childress informed the media that Adrian Peterson sustained an LCL injury to his right leg. Adrian has a partial tear to the LCL ligament. The injury is classified as a Grade 2+ injury out of 3, with a grade 3 being the worst possible in which the LCL would be completely torn.

The Adrian Peterson injury has been a roller coaster of thoughts for Viking Fans. Initially seeing Adrian go down I thought his knee was done with a complete ACL tear and he was done for the season. Then after seeing some replays where the hit was on the inside of the knee, his leg was not planted with a gruesome snap, he walked off the field, and hearing reports of Adrian moving on the sidelines and wanting to go back in, I thought maybe we got lucky with a bad bruise to the knee cap or something. Now today we find out it’s somewhere in the middle, Adrian has a partial tear and should be back in a few games.

A partial tear like this makes me nervous that it could be totally torn down the line. The LCL does not seem to be as critical as cruciate tear but when it happens to your super star that shows the promise of a Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, or Barry Sanders you can’t help but be bummin’. All we can hope for is that the tear was not too bad and Adrian gets enough time off to heal all the way. Looks like Eric Dickerson’s all time rushing record is safe this year, Eric’s rookie record might also be safe. I guess its really time to look forward to next year.

You can see video at NFL.com of Adrian Peterson’s catch and run where he injures his knee.

The knee and ligaments image is from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons web site. Be sure to check it out for more information on these kinds of knee injuries.