That's has been my problem all my jumping life: I can't amortizate in the quads. I might have faulty mechanics and overload the quads too much in the plant, but they ARE the limiting factor because they limit my ability to use momentum. You don't really need to be able to put out THAT much force voluntarily if you can use the accumulated kinetic force during the run-up in your plant.
But in order to do that you need to be able to stop the forward momentum and make it convert into upward thrust. To do that you need the best brakes in the world. The brakes are the quads because they prevent the knee collapse. So basically you need great quad eccentric strength to decelerate.
That's why I'm trying to forcefully decelerate after sprints... to learn to manage the high quad eccentric load... kind of like in a depth jump. I remember Adam Linkenauger recommending against a quick deceleration after a sprint as it might be injurious... but I kind of use that as an exercise in itself.
forcefully decelerating after sprints definitely hits the quads hard, that's one benefit from all of the visual-reactive drills i used to do with the more advanced athletes.. very quick decels transitioned to re-accels. . but ya i like it..
you need to rest up, heal that knee, then get back to making progress.. dno how you're going to go 100% on things like decels etc with your knee acting up, unfortunately, cns is going to inhibit if it senses anything risky.
one thing most people don't do are back pedal sprints.. defensive backs for nfl do them a ton, but in general most athletes don't spend time reaching 'max backpedal velocity' and accelerating max during that movement.. it hits the quads hard, it's a ton of high velocity TKE's.
peace man