Adrian Peterson Compares His Injury To RGIII's

Have to give props to our friends over at Hogs Haven for catching this one before we did.

For the second consecutive off-season, NFL fans will be wondering how one of the league's biggest stars will fare after rehabbing a devastating knee injury. Last season, Minnesota Vikings' running back Adrian Peterson suffered a torn ACL and LCL, along with meniscus damage, in the second-to-last game of the season against the Washington Redskins. This season, in a playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks, it was Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III that suffered a similar injury.

At this point, the diagnosis for RGIII has him back on the field in somewhere between six and eight months. This seems to be largely based on Peterson's rehab from his knee injury this past off-season. However, in an interview conducted at the Pro Bowl, Peterson told NFL.com's Jeff Darlington that such diagnoses might not be 100% accurate.

"That's not fair," Peterson told NFL.com's Jeff Darlington after the NFC's first Pro Bowl practice of the week Wednesday. "Everybody's body heals differently. That's something nobody is going to understand."

In addition to that, as the article notes, this is the second time that RGIII has torn the same ACL, as he tore it while he was playing his college ball at Baylor. There are enough variables that could be different between AD's injury and RGIII's injury that we really can't list them all here. The truth is that nobody knows how RGIII's rehab is going to go. Not RGIII, not his doctors, and not anybody else.

Peterson then said something that, to me, came off as a bit of a rib, but I can see where Redskins fans that might not know Peterson the way we do might be offended by it.

"This is also a matter of genetics," Peterson said. "Look at my dad. And my mom's side, my aunts and uncles, they're all ripped. At 50 years old, they've got six packs and eight packs.

"My body just heals differently. I know it has a lot to do with rehabilitation and work ethic -- but I really credit my genetics for my recovery as much as anything else."

Now, we know Adrian Peterson is a fantastic athlete. Robert Griffin III is, also, a fantastic athlete. And, while not being a doctor or a scientist myself or anything, I'm guessing that RGIII's genetics are pretty good, too.

The main thing to take away from this is that nobody knows how RGIII's injury will affect him. Nobody will know how long his rehab is going to take until it's complete. Adrian Peterson had a great return from his injury. . .on the other hand, as we've pointed out before, former Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis (also an outstanding athlete) suffered a similar injury, and was out of the National Football League in two years.

I hope that Robert Griffin is healthy and ready to go when the Redskins make a trip to the Metrodome next season, whenever that happens (they are on the Vikings' schedule next season). Even though he made the Vikings look silly at times when they met in 2012. The National Football League is at its best when all its stars are healthy, and RGIII has a chance to be one of its biggest.