Adrian Peterson Played Through a Sports Hernia During Historic Season

Adrian Peterson put together one of the best seasons a running back has ever had in the NFL, but while the big story was how he was coming off of an ACL injury at the time, we are now learning that Peterson was suffering from a sports hernia at the same time and played through what he described as intense pain near the end of the season.

Peterson said the injury occurred after the Vikings week 10 win over the Lions and progressively got worse from there.

“That next day I felt very uncomfortable in my groin and abdominal area,” Peterson tells Josina Anderson of ESPN.  “I thought to myself I’ll just wait until I recover but I never did.  I came out after that play. Each week it just got worse and worse and worse.”

While he was able to play through the pain, Peterson noted that in the Vikings week 16 game against the Texans, a game that saw his rushing total take a dip, the pain was at it’s absolute worst.

“Against Houston, that was probably the worse I felt,” Peterson said.  “That was the first time that I really doubted myself and questioned whether I would be able to continue the season.  The pain was a 10 on a scale of 10.  Put it like this, I developed a new respect for Greg Jennings who had the same type of injury.  Initially I thought Greg was tripping and that he needed to be playing, but when I got it I was like, I understand bro’.  This is nothing to fool with.”

Peterson didn’t appear on an injury report until Week 15, but he said that if he hadn’t been suffering from the sports hernia, he would have been even better and likely would have crushed Eric Dickerson’s record.

“It definitely impacted my play,” Peterson 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.”

Basically, Adrian Peterson ran for over 2,000 yards on a surgically reconstructed left knee while suffering blinding pain from a sport hernia.

So it’s settled then, Adrian Peterson is God, and that’s the end of the discussion.