"A year ago yesterday, Leonard Weaver was rejoicing after getting to play in the Pro Bowl for the first time. They held the Pro Bowl again yesterday, in Hawaii, but Weaver was in Birmingham, Ala., rejoicing over his three sons joining him for a visit, as Weaver continues his rehab under the auspices of Dr. James Andrews.

This has been a tough season for the big fullback who might have been the Eagles' top veteran addition of 2009, on and off the field.

"The question has lingered in my mind - why now?" Weaver, 28, said recently, between rehab sessions for his seriously injured left knee. "I'd just gotten the new [3-year, $11 million] contract. There are things in life that are meant to be messages."

When Weaver looks at the replay of the sequence from the Eagles' season opener last Sept. 12, when his left leg bent backward and his career changed, what bothers him isn't so much the grotesque bowing of his leg - the element that has made the clip an Internet sensation - but knowing that he cut back, away from the original design of the play, running straight into Packers linebacker Nick Barnett.

"If I hadn't cut back, I would have hit my head on the goal post," Weaver said. "There was nobody there . . . I remember the pain. I remember the moment. But I'm not squeamish. I looked at it the day after it happened, several times, to get back over that fear."

One irony is that Weaver's tackler, Barnett, played only 3 more weeks before suffering a season-ending wrist injury. Barnett was in the news this weekend, clashing with quarterback Aaron Rodgers over Rodgers' comments about injured players choosing not to rehab in Green Bay, then wanting to be in the team photo, for the NFC's Super Bowl representative.

Like Barnett, Weaver has been feeling a little left out lately. A couple of reports about his injury have stressed the improbability of Weaver being able to come back to play again, let alone at a Pro Bowl level. In numerous tweets and in two interviews for this story, Weaver questioned why the long odds he faces would be the focus, instead of his determination to beat them.

Yes, this is uncharted territory, Weaver acknowledged. There is no record of an NFL player coming back from a torn ACL, a torn posterior lateral corner, and nerve damage. Recently, Weaver underwent his third surgery since suffering the injury, this to his left foot, a tendon-transfer procedure aimed at allowing him to once again raise the foot."