Carson Wentz appears to be returning from foot surgery sooner rather than later. Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich gave some encouraging news on his quarterback, two weeks removed from the team’s wide-ranging 5 to 12 week recovery timeline.
“We’re at the two-week window,” Reich said to reporters during Colts training camp Monday. “We feel good about where we’re at, at the two-week window. You know what I like to say about these kinds of things is, I don’t see the advantage of me trying to project that out. I can just tell you we feel good about where we’re at right now. I think that’s the main thing.
“I think Carson and Q (Quenton Nelson) have done a good job in the rehab process with the right mentality getting the work done that they need to get done and I think it’s all been good.”
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Obviously the shortest Wentz can return to the field is three weeks from Monday, which would put him in place to start the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks on Sept. 12. If Wentz is good for a full practice on that Monday of game week, he’ll get a full week’s worth of practice for the Week 1 showdown.
The next step toward Wentz actually playing in Week 1 is coming up, and Reich’s optimism toward it is an excellent sign he’ll be returning in September.
“He’ll start doing some walk-throughs here pretty soon. Part of the rehab process will just be doing walk-throughs, and you guys know how we feel about that. That’s real,” Reich said. “When he gets out there and is doing a walk-through with us, that’s a good thing. He’ll start throwing some. He’ll start throwing some and then we will advance that as we can. When you say start throwing, that could mean a lot of different things.
“He’s been sticking to a plan. That plan has been going well. We’re happy where he’s at right now. We’ll just look forward to updating you guys as we go along and we get further along in the process. Now two weeks into it, we feel good where we’re at, but just feel like these next two weeks will be really critical for him to say on course – he and Quenton – and continue to get better.”
Wentz has been at Colts practice over the past week without a boot, an encouraging sign for Reich that his quarterback is getting ready for the opener. The timetable is shortened for Wentz, but Reich and the Colts still aren’t going to rush him back.
“I think it’s very positive. Like I said, I continue to be optimistic about his return, but it still just doesn’t make any sense for me to try to predict when that will be because as the rehab continues and he starts pushing it,” Reich said. “You don’t know – is there a setback along the way when you really start going harder and you really start testing it out?
“Right now everything feels like it’s great, but how far have we really tested it? We’re only two weeks out. I think that’s why it makes sense to me and our team here, hey, let’s let him get further into this process and the rehab and the actual getting on the field and taking next steps there to determine the pace that we go.”
