Carson Palmer came back pretty strong, he just dealt with other injuries that hindered his comeback.

Palmer and Culpepper did basically did the same thing, completely destroyed their knee. In Palmer’s case, he tore his ACL and MCL (just like Brady), but also dislocated his kneecap and had other ligament damage and torn cartilage. Basically after his knee was twisted and the damage was done to his knee, the top of his knee separated from the bottom and all the connecting cartilage was ripped apart. Culpepper was by far the worst. He not only tore his ACL, MCL, cartilage, but he also tore his PCL. Only 5% of knee injuries are as bad as what he had. And for someone whose game relied on mobility, and considering his size and stress put on his knee, it’s actually a miracle he’s came back from it at all. His was also one of the worst of the bunch because he was running at the time. The other two happened when they were stationary. Rivers recovered as quickly as he did because the damage was limited to his ACL and it was “only” a partial tear.

They had to pretty much completely reconstruct Palmer’s and Culpepper’s knees from scratch. It’s not as prominent in Palmer’s game as it was in Culpepper’s because he wasn’t as mobile of a QB. But that was the knock on Palmer for about half a season when he came back. He was obviously tense when the pocket would begin to collapse, with good reason, I would be too. The hit took him completely unaware and was on his first pass. By the way, that hit was 10 times dirtier than the “dirty” hit on Brady.

Brady did completely tear both the ACL and MCL, but luckily (and yes, even though I hate the Pats I never wish something like this on anyone) it was limited to those ligaments and there was no cartilage damage. He twisted his knee, but it didn’t separate.

So to put it into perspective, Rivers did have a partial tear, and was able to recover quickly. Both Palmer and Culpepper both showed the major advances in medicine and came back when a couple years earlier, they would have been out of football and probably had consistent and painful problems the rest of their lives. Brady’s, although not as severe was still a very severe injury. The injury itself was bad, but then he had the infection. And if you remember the complications Peyton had from a simple procedure that was complicated by infection, you begin to understand the franchising of Cassel. It wasn’t a strategic trade move, they might need him.

And you’re right, all four of them were listed as “ACL injuries”. But there were definite differences in the extent of them.