Last week, Vikings coach Leslie Frazier left open the possibility that wide receiver Greg Childs would get medical clearance to resume football activities sometime early in camp.
That would be about a year after he tore the patellar tendons in both knees during a Vikings practice while trying to make a catch on a play when he wasn’t ever touched. There were doubts about whether Childs would ever play again -- there’s no record of anyone coming back from that injury to play in another NFL game -- especially since Childs had suffered the same injury to one of his knees at Arkansas.
By all accounts, though, Childs has worked incredibly hard during rehab and remains committed to becoming the first player to play in a game after such a devastating injury. Trainer Eric Sugarman said Childs never blinked when he heard the long odds against a comeback and Childs hopes he winds up as an inspiration to future players recovering from career-altering injuries.
“I’m the kind of guy who is going to make this believable. People are going to be like, ‘OK, we believe now,’” Childs said, via Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “One day, when this happens to other guys, they’ll have a guideline to go by. They’ll be able to say, ‘OK, just because I tore both of mine, look at that guy Greg Childs. He worked his butt off and did what they said couldn’t be done.’”
The team is putting no timeline on Childs’ recovery and they’ve consistently pledged patience with his comeback effort. They’re under no obligation to do that, but the kind of work that Childs has been putting in is certainly deserving of as much rope as the Vikings can give him in his effort to blaze a new trail back from such a devastating injury.