Injuries are a part of football. It’s almost guaranteed that someone in a game will be injured; whether it be a minor injury like a rolled ankle or a cramp or something as serious as a concussion or broken bone. Anything is in the realm of possibility in a full contact sport like football. People are flying at each other full speed, and trying to hit players as hard as they can to possibly force a fumble or send a message. And if you can believe it, the game used to be a lot worse. But as bad as all these contact injuries are, there has always been one devastating injury that for whatever reason tends to be contact free.

Every year a handful of players tear their Anterior Cruciate Ligament, or ACL. Most recently the Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater just suffered an ACL tear and as is protocol, he will miss the entire season. The reason I bring this up is because the ACL tear is the strangest injury I have ever seen.

Unlike most injuries in football there is typically a clear reason as to how it happened. But an ACL typically happens without any real cause. Nobody hits the player; nobody grabs their leg and bends it. Everything will look normal and then out of nowhere the player will fall to the ground in pain. I don’t’ know if it’s how the turf field grabs the cleats, but something happens to these players and there is no real answer to why. As of right now there are just theories.

The strangest part of this injury however is the tolerance. When the ACL tears and the player goes down, and sometimes, they will be able to get back up, and walk off the field with nothing more than a minor limp. You see this injury and you don’t think much of it when you are watching from home. I just don’t understand how you can walk on a torn ligament with such little problem. This injury that takes a whole season to fully heal was caused by what looked like nothing.

I know that concussions are the be all end all of football injuries in terms of focus right now, but at some point I would like some clarity on this ACL injury.