If you have a heart, it's hard not to have some sympathy for Erasmus James. The Vikings defensive end was placed on injured reserve after tearing the ACL in his left knee for the second consecutive season.Tearing an ACL is a bad enough injury when it happens once, but to have to go through the months of rehab twice in two years has to be a crushing blow for James. He had just regained his starting job and had only played in six games since coming back from his previous knee injury.
"For us, it's frustrating to watch a guy work as hard as he has to get back and, obviously, you'd never wish that to happen to somebody one time," said linebacker Chad Greenway, who also had major knee surgery early last season and spent 2006 on the shelf. "But to have it done twice, in this short amount of time, it's really unfortunate."
Rehabbing an ACL injury involves months of extensive physical rehab. The good news is that ACL injury recoveries are very common, but since the injury happened so late in the season, James is a pretty likely bet to miss most or even all of the 2008 season, which would be the third straight season largely lost to knee injuries.
