Indianapolis Colts fans may be a bit curious as to why star linebacker Shaquille Leonard has been ruled out for Week 3 despite practicing in full for the second consecutive week.
Leonard has been working his way back from offseason back surgery, which corrected an impinged nerve that caused issues with his calf and ankle over the better part of the last calendar year. The surgery has left Leonard pain-free for the first time in a long time, but he’s still not at the point where he can contribute on the field.
Building up that strength and conditioning is the final hurdle for Leonard to get over in order for him to make it back onto the field. Head coach Frank Reich went into detail Friday when speaking with reporters.
“Really good week for Shaq (Shaquille Leonard). There’s been incremental improvement every week. I would say this week was incremental-plus, just to try to give you guys some sense of where he’s at,” Reich said. “He remains in great attitude, great spirits, a great teammate.”
From the outside, it’s always easier to make assumptions about injuries. While it certainly is a bit confusing how Leonard could practice fully and still be ruled out, only he knows how his body feels.
It would be unfair to say Leonard is the type of player who doesn’t want to be on the field. His entire career has proven that he’s the exact opposite type of player. He’s a maniac on the field and a leader in the locker room. Few players have the kind of drive Leonard has.
Of course, it’s frustrating for fans. They want to see their star linebacker making plays and helping a team win—a team that has gotten off to a horrendous start. For those wondering about putting Leonard on the PUP to start the season, he wouldn’t be able to practice at all during the first four weeks. The timetable would be pushed back even further.
But Leonard and the team are making sure he’s 100% when he returns to the field. While I’d argue that getting Leonard on the field for 40% of the plays might be worth it, it’s easy to understand the Colts not taking any chances.
“What’s left is he’s got to know he can go out there and play winning football. That’s the bottom line. He’s got to know he can go out there and play winning football and feel confident in that,” Reich said. “That’s mostly coming from him. That’s a conversation with everybody, but deep down it’s the player. Deep down the player has to know he can go out there and play winning football and help this team win.”
So while the decision seems to be mostly up to Leonard, it also seems to be a bit deeper than that. The Colts have been comparing the tape in practice to the tape he’s put on the field in games over the last few seasons.
Reich noted that collaborative decision-making, which includes Leonard, still believes there’s a lot left on the field. The tape isn’t matching up to where they need it to be.
“Only he truly knows how it feels. We watch tape and we can see – when you look at tape from last year, the year before versus tape now and you watch him move, we’re doing that,” Reich said. “So from our standpoint, it’s we need the tape to look close to what it looked like when you were relatively healthy, that’s one side of it. Then the side from Shaq (Shaquille Leonard) is, he needs to feel it. That’s where it’s collaborative.”
The Colts certainly need their star linebacker to return quickly. When that will be remains to be seen, but Reich is confident Leonard is doing all he can to get his body into shape.
“This injury is a BEAR so he’s fighting and scratching every second, every way he can to get back on the field. I promise you that. He’s doing everything plus he can do to get back out there on that field. It’s killing him.”
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