More than three years after he opened up the damaged left knee of Robert Edwards in an operating room at the Straub Clinic and Hospital in Honolulu, surgeon Dean Soto can still remember his initial concerns.

"It looked," said Dr. Soto a few weeks ago, "like someone just threw a hand grenade in there. It was a devastating injury. At that point, I was much more concerned with saving his leg than his football career. We figured, 'Well, he might be able to walk with a cane someday.' That was the upside."

Well, perhaps that was the medical upside for someone who does not possess the tenacity and determination of Edwards, the tailback who earned a niche on the Miami Dolphins roster this summer after a three-season hiatus spent rehabilitating from that grotesque knee injury of Feb. 5, 1999.

On that evening in 1999, when re-establishing blood flow to Edwards' left foot was the surgical imperative, Dean Soto didn't have time to gauge the size of his patient's heart. Three years later, if Soto were to suddenly change his specialty from orthopedics to cardiology, he wouldn't need an angiogram to know that Edwards has one huge ticker beating inside his chest.

Whether or not Edwards logs a carry in Sunday's season opener against the Detroit Lions -- heck, whether he registers a single rushing attempt all year -- the former University of Georgia star is the feel-good story of the season. In much the same manner as he cast off corrective braces at age 3, desperate to run and jump and skip with other kids his Tennille, Ga., neighborhood, Roberts has settled all doubts about his left knee.

Three years ago, merely running onto the field Sunday afternoon, really was unthinkable. To touch the ball, to pound into the defensive line for the first time since a Jan. 3, 1999 playoff defeat at Jacksonville, would be nothing shy of a miracle. And, in a very real sense, a testiment to the human spirit.

"Let me tell you, just to walk on a yard-marker again, even that feels better than I can ever explain," said Edwards, who will scrounge for playing time behind new Dolphins running game workhorse Ricky Williams. "To stand in the huddle again, it's something you don't count as special, unless you haven't done it (for) three years. To score a touchdown, oh, man, the feeling. All I can say is that God has been very good to me. Very good, indeed, in allowing me to play again."

No sacrilege intended but, in the case of Edwards, divine intervention might not have been enough had the player accepted the prognosis of orthopedists who strongly advised him to retire. But for Edwards, the New England first-round choice in the 1998 draft and the 15th player chosen overall that year, retirement would only have been a possibility had all 32 franchises rejected his entreaties for a camp audition.

It cost the Dolphins zero, not a penny of signing bonus money, to get his name on a contract. The deal calls for a $300,000 base salary, the minimum for a player with only one season of experience. The experience of watching Edwards consummate his comeback, as the credit car commercial contends, was priceless for coach Dave Wannstedt, his staff, and Dolphins players.

"You don't keep guys on the roster just because they try hard," Wannstedt said. "You'd have 80-man rosters if that was the case. Nah, he earned it. He told us in the spring he could come back and he did it."

Philosophers contend that, to truly understand a man's state in life, you have to comprehend from whence he came. The circuitous journey for Edwards, who ran for 1,115 yards as a rookie with the Patriots and scored 12 times, was an ordeal that started in paradise, detoured through hell and culminated in football heaven.

It is of special interest for this columnist because I saw Edwards in his first moment of college glory. Along with my best friend of 40-plus years, Herm Donatelli, I was at the University of Georgia opener against South Carolina in 1995. The game was notable for two reasons: That was the first time in 10 years, and the last time since, I attended a game above high school level that I wasn't writing about. Second, Edwards scored five touchdowns.

The next week, he broke a bone in his foot, and was lost for the season. That was the start of an injury jinx that culminated in the knee devastation.

There may, in the annals of orthopedic medicine as we know it, have been more devastating knee injuries than the Edwards blowup. But you'd have to dig deep into the medical archives to find one.

In a flag football game that was part of the festivities preceding the Pro Bowl game in 1999, Edwards leaped to deflect a pass, and landed awkwardly on his left leg. The torque tore the anterior cruciate ligament. It ripped both the posterior cruciate ligament and medical collateral ligament. The fourth knee ligament, the lateral collateral, was frayed.

Take a piece of cooked spaghetti, hold it up, and watch it droop between your fingers. That's how Edwards' leg looked immediately after the injury.

"I knew it was bad because I couldn't feel anything," Edwards recalled. "It was beyond limp. At least with limp, there's something there, OK? There was nothing when I reached down. Then I think I went into shock."

With good reason.

	“	You don't keep guys on the roster just because they try hard. You'd have 80-man rosters if that was the case. Nah, he earned it. He told us in the spring he could come back and he did it. ”
		— Dave Wannstedt, Dolphins head coach

More critical, beyond tearing to some degree all four ligaments, Edwards also stretched the peroneal nerve and he nicked the popliteal artery. The first left him unable to control the movement of his foot, a condition generally known as "drop foot." The second nearly left him without the foot at all.

The injury to the artery meant blood was not getting to the foot. Another hour or two without surgery and doctors almost certainly would have had to amputate. And while Edwards is a miracle worker, the modern history of the NFL doesn't include anyone playing with a prosthesis. Later in 1999, in fact, California-Davis tailback Sam Paneno dislocated his right knee (an injury that is similar to Edwards'), didn't undergo surgery for seven hours, and subsequently had his leg amputated below the knee.

Even after a second operation, this one by Patriots surgeon Bert Zarins two weeks after the Hawaii surgery, Edwards was regarded leaguewide as done. He went home to Tennille, then to Athens, Ga., where he worked out with his brother, Georgia wide receiver Terrence Edwards. During the down times, Edwards would counsel with Garrison Hearst, another former Georgia tailback who also salvaged his career from the scrap heap after an injury that should have ended his NFL tenure.

"He pushed me and vice versa," Edwards said.

There followed a long stretch with Tom Shaw, a renowned New Orleans-based trainer, a self-styled "performance enhancement specialist."

Shaw's primary job every spring is to make prospects run faster, to prepare them for the predraft combine, to chop off tenths of seconds that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at contract time. Edwards was a unique challenge because, before Shaw could make him run faster, he first had to teach him to run again. Period.

"He was like a guy," Shaw recalled, "who was missing the bottom of his leg. I mean, it was there, but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing worked right. But you crawl, you walk, and eventually you run. We went deeper than basics, because we had to, we were starting from so far back. It would have been real easy for Robert to quit. There are times I came pretty damned close to telling him, 'That's it.' But there was (incremental) progress and he felt that even more than I did. So, no, he wasn't going to throw in the towel as long as he felt there was even an inch of improvement."

In painful gradients the knee improved to the point where the Pats agreed to bring Edwards to camp last summer. On the second day of camp workouts, he strained a groin, and was eventually released. After the 2001 season his agents, Roosevelt Barnes and Eugene Parker, called or faxed virtually every team in the league. The Dolphins were at least curious. Then in camp they began paying attention. Now there is a chance Edwards could be the top backup to Williams.

A guy who attends Mass every week, Wannstedt understands he has seen a miracle in the making. Edwards' family, which prayed for him merely to regain the ability to function, finds it hard to talk about what has happened. "It's hard work, God at work, everything," said Edwards' father, Robert II. Even Edwards, who still insists he never doubted he would return someday, is incredulous at what he has accomplished.

"All I know," he said, "is that Jesus made the lame walk again, and I kept thinking about that every time I worked out. I still have to pinch myself when I'm on the field. But in my heart, I know this is real, and that I've got a second chance now. Nobody thought it was possible. But you work hard and keep the faith and you never know what you can do."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.