Career year...after big injury

[Darkiller]

In the NFL, as in FOF, it happens that a player -in the midst of a potentialy great career- gets injured very seriously.
I'm thinking of all those RBs whose careers were cut short because of devastating ACL injuries or others (necrosis etc..)

examples are famous : Bo Jackson, Terrell Davis and many others.
A case could be made that Edgerrin James' career might go in flames now, one year removed from his season-ending injury : he is clearly not the same back as of now.

It is being said that a player needs a full year of recovery after the injury to get back to 100% (or close to that). So as far as James is concerned, we'll see next season if he's any better than in 2002.

Now let's go back to FOF :
We know that when a player is badly injured, his ratings drop a lot and and he when he's back healthy, he may-or may not recover his "red bars".

So, have you ever had player that had a devastating injury, was lost for the season (or more) and bounced back the following year with a...career year, as a matter of fact.

It happened to me once :
my 5th year All-League RB blew his knee in the second game of the season and was out until the following year : he was placed on injured reserve immediately of course.
His ratings (almost maxed out before the injury), dropped by more than 35% and stayed that way the next year.

He came back, and guess what : rushed for a league record 2009 yards and 15 TDs.
(this is the best I've ever had a RB in any season of any career).

Interestingly enough, or odd enough, the very next year, he had only 847 yards and 3 TDs behind the same OL.
(my coach called the plays and handed him the ball just 199 times against 338 the year he set the record, why ? I don't know...)

But basically that was it :
- devastating injury to the RB
- loses more than 35% of rating points
- comes back 12 months later and sets the NFL rushing record with over 2000 yards despite being supposedly "less strong".

I found that quite amazing, have you ever had anything similar ?

[azjoe_02]

Can't say that I've had that kind of success, but I did have a WR that was maxed out pretty well and he too blew his knee out and came back with stats good enough to keep him in the 1st or 2nd league WR category for a few years. He lost about 40 percent of his ratings with the injury.

[Darkiller]

bump.

[Leonidas]

I had a MLB with a torn ACL who missed something like 59 weeks. He came back with his ratings intact and his first full year back he was 2nd team All-Pro. He had never been All-Pro before. This was a guy who was like a fourth or fifth year guy when he got hurt so it's not like a natural progression thing.

[Darkiller]

definitely the kind of example I was looking for.
thanks for this Leonidas.

[albionmoonlight]

In FOF2 I had a QB get injured in his 10th year. He was a great player for me, but he took a big ratings hit, so I figured he was done for and let him go. Pittsburgh took him up and he played for 7 more years, winning three superbowls and getting a handful of all pro awards. So even though it came back to bite me in the butt--yes, I've seen players play at a high level after an injury.