DeForest Buckner cleared for camp, determined to prove he’s still an elite force after neck surgery
· Yahoo Sports
WESTFIELD — DeForest Buckner got the news he expected to hear on Monday night.
But it was news that a lot of people did not see coming. For most of this year, the speculation on the Colts' star defensive tackle has swirled around whether he’d be able to recover from the New Year’s Eve microdiscectomy he underwent to repair a herniated disc in his neck.
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The injury, by far the worst of Buckner’s career, got his attention.
For the first time, Buckner spoke openly about weighing a lengthy career against the long-term impacts of football, and he said in April that the injury might force him to change his technique. All of that honesty prompted speculation that Buckner wouldn’t be able to open training camp on the active list.
Buckner was cleared by the Colts’ doctors Monday night.
“It felt like a graduation day for me, personally,” Buckner said. “From where I started on New Year’s Eve, not being able to do a whole lot after surgery, pretty much being in the bed, not able to move around. … I couldn’t even pick my kids up. … I couldn’t pick up anything heavier than 10 pounds for the first couple of weeks. It was frustrating, but I kept my faith, kept working and trusting the doctors, my trainers.”
That doesn’t mean Buckner will take every snap right away.
Indianapolis will likely monitor his workload closely, although that likely would have been true even if he wasn’t coming off an injury.
Buckner, the indomitable presence who used to play more snaps than almost any other defensive tackle, is now 32 years old, and the effect of all those snaps is that he’s now the type of player the Colts try to give rest days during training camp.
“I’m sure there’s going to be a ramp-up period, acclimation period for me to get back out there. … I haven’t had any contact in the spring or anything like that,” Buckner said. “You want to be cautious, you want to be smart.”
Buckner did not participate in the team’s offseason program.
But he has been getting ready to play football. Buckner spent his summer break by doing field work, going through defensive line drills, hitting pop-up bags and working on his punch, making sure he’s ready to play with the power that has always been a hallmark of his game.
The hope is the surgery allows Buckner to play at the Pro Bowl level he’s established during a decade in the NFL with San Francisco and Indianapolis.
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And while the injury forced Buckner to consider his football future, the big defensive tackle stopped short of making any predictions about the end of his career on Monday.
Buckner’s headed into the final year of the two-year, $46 million extension he signed two years ago, but for the moment, he doesn’t see this season as a last dance.
“It’s my last year on contract, but obviously, coming off an injury, and everybody always has questions. … ‘Is this guy going to be as good as he once was?’” Buckner said. “I try to stay away from all the stuff in the media, but obviously, I see it. This is a thing for me to prove to myself, and nobody else, that I can still play at a high level.”
Buckner’s already proven some speculation to be wrong by getting cleared for the start of training camp.
The hard part comes next.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: DeForest Buckner cleared for camp, determined to prove he’s still an elite force after neck surgery