pawnjohn
Registered User
- Jan 27, 2017
- 59
- 67
Yeah, well we can't be sure of it without professional opinion about it.
Here is a video of the injury
A contact ACL injury like this one is going to be completely due the hit and nothing to do with him coming into camp out of shape. In the video, you can see he is on one leg when he is being hit, and the outside portion of his knee rams into the boards. The valgus (or inward) force directed onto the knee from the boards while only balancing on one leg is what causes the injury. Him being in better shape, or having more strength in leg isn't going to prevent that injury from happening.
It is similar to a football player being tackled from behind/side with the impact right at the knee. The point of contact and force directly on the knee is going to cause the ACL to fail and tear as there is no time for his hamstring muscles to contract quickly enough to prevent the anterior translation of his tibia.
If this injury were a non-contact injury that happened during practice/training/game early in the season, then that could from not taking the off-season seriously. A muscular strain (or "pulled muscle") is the type of injury you would see more from deconditioned athletes trying to jump into play too early.