COULD COACHS DESIRE TO SAVE HIS JOB PUT A.P. AT RISK?
“It’s not realistic,” Dr. Johnny Benjamin, the chief of orthopedics at Indian River Medical Center in Vero Beach, Fla, told Jensen. “Saying it’s a Grade 2-plus [tear] is the doctors trying to give coach [Brad] Childress and all the Viking faithful some hope. “But it’s a torn ligament, and a torn ligament is going to take six weeks to heal. And that’s for someone like a doctor or news writer, who doesn’t go out there and make cuts like Adrian Peterson obviously does.” Though the fact that Dr. Benjamin allows himself to be called “Johnny” dilutes the message a bit in our eyes, the team with the horns on their helmets is indeed residing on the horns of a major dilemma. With one of the most exciting young players that the NFL has ever seen, do they put him at risk in a string of meaningless games, or do they save him for an assault on the record books in 2008? The only problem is that the guy who likely will be making the final decision in this regard has a clear conflict of interest. For
