Peterson Has Surgery For Second Straight Offseason

When Adrian Peterson first lit up the NFL during his rookie season, NFL analysts warned Vikings fans that his running style would lead to the light burning out faster than anyone could imagine.

After what Peterson did following his 2011 knee surgery, however, some might suggest he should go under the knife every year.

On Thursday, Peterson had surgery to repair a sports hernia that first popped up (out?) during the Vikings week 10 game against the Lions.  Of course, it didn’t seem to slow him down at all.  In those final seven games, Peterson rushed for 1,068 yards and fell just nine yards short of the all-time record for rushing yard in a season.

The pain got to Peterson and he was regularly held out of weekly practices during that time.  He received a cortisone shot before his week 13 game against the Packers and described his pain level as a “10 on a scale of 10” during the week 16 game against the Texans.

Each week it just got worse and worse and worse,” said Peterson.  “I kept thinking to myself why is this happening and why now. With everything that I was going through with my knee I just said to myself I am not going to let this bring me down. I just focused on doing my rehab, getting rest and continuing to play.”

Peterson went on to admit that he felt he could have performed even better, and possibly broke the rushing record, had it not been for the injury.

“It definitely impacted my play,”  He said.  “I wasn’t 100 percent, but I wanted to win a championship. I wasn’t going to stop or quit. I made a decision to keep going. I don’t want to make it seem like the sports hernia made me miss it. I could have done it with the injury. All I can say is that I would have had better performances.”

Peterson said that he was given a timeline of about three or four weeks before he can do a full workout.  In other words, we will probably be hearing about Peterson going through his first full workout in a week and a half.

This injury will just add to the legend that Peterson’s 2012 performance has already become, and it shouldn’t hinder him at all moving forward.

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