E.J. Henderson May Not Be Human

You can never fully trust the word of a doctor commenting on the injury of someone that he has never seen or evaluated, but if what Dr. David Thorson says is true, then we may be seeing E.J. Henderson back by training camp. No, that's not in a wheelchair maybe walking and saying hi to his old teammates back, I'm talking about putting on pads and helmet and actually hitting people back. Via the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

"Assuming everything is as it should be, my guess is he'll be participating in training camp," said David Thorson, a physician who works with the St. Paul Saints, Twin Cities Marathon and the U.S. ski team. "The bone heals fast, and he's a healthy guy."

Thorson said the femur — the longest and strongest bone in the body — should heal in six to eight weeks and that Henderson could resume running in eight to 12 weeks.

Athletes, though, typically need about nine months to fully recover from the fractured femur.

"There's a physical recovery and a psychological recovery," Thorson said. "Sometimes, the psychological takes longer."

Thorson said he has worked with six professional athletes — most of them skiers — who suffered fractured femurs and all of them returned to competition the next season. Thorson noted that skiers put much more stress on the leg than a football player because of the centrifugal force.

"Every athlete I've had was competing at a high level after (successful surgery) and competing at a high level a year later," Thorson said. " "They're not 100 percent back, but they're back doing what they need to do."

Thorson watched the Vikings' 30-17 loss Sunday to the Arizona Cardinals and saw Henderson's injury.


Like many fans and teammates, Thorson was horrified by the unnatural bend of Henderson's left leg.

"I said this isn't good the way the knee went," Thorson said.

But after learning that Henderson had a fractured femur, Thorson said the player should feel fortunate that he didn't suffer a serious knee injury.

"In some respects, this may be better news than other injuries," Thorson said. "(Major knee injuries) can be more difficult to recover from."

Okay, that is disgusting on so many levels. And here I was thinking he would be lucky if he could ever walk right again.

While it is certainly good for the Vikings that Henderson will be back by training camp, him being done for the year certainly puts them in a bit of a bind defensively as Jared Allen cannot be playing 12 positions at once and the Williams can't be on the field for more than half the game. Yes, they really do spend 30 minutes of game time devouring cheeseburgers. That secondary is susceptible to the passing attack if Kurt Warner showed us anything at all on Sunday and the Vikings would be in big time trouble if they have to go against the Saints in the playoffs. Message to Andy Reid: just because a team is susceptible to the pass does not mean you can throw it on literally every play of the game!!! If you try to do that Andrew Walter Reid, Pat Williams will be picking off 30-yard deep balls in no time.

But going back to E.J. Henderson, if you have been living under a rock and have not seen this video yet, I would advise you to see it just so that you can appreciate how amazing it is that this guy can be back by training camp. Then again, if you are at all squeamish to odd contortions of the human leg, I would advise you to not to watch it and just take my word that this would be an incredible recovery.