The Indianapolis Colts started their 2017 preseason schedule on Sunday afternoon at home against the Detroit Lions, but they did so without Andrew Luck on the field. Luck had surgery on his throwing shoulder earlier this offseason and has yet to return to the field.
When will he be back? Well, that's not exactly clear right now. Even Colts owner Jim Irsay doesn't really appear to know.
Again, that's not exactly a clear timeline.
Irsay's lack of clarity is interesting considering how positive he was about Luck's recovery earlier this offseason. "Andrew is healing tremendously," Irsay said in June. "This (surgery) has been a positive thing, not a negative thing or anything like that. He was really struggling going through the process of being ready to play (for each week last season). This was, quite frankly, not that complicated of a surgery. This was a simple labrum repair. There are a lot of other things that could have been involved with this surgery that weren't."
Previously, Irsay did note that the Colts would take their time getting him back on the field so that he would not be reinjured. "We are not going to be rushing him," Irsay said in March. "We are going to make sure, obviously, that the shoulder has to be ready and the doctors are going to give full approval before he starts putting real reps on it and that sort of thing. This is going to be a huge benefit in the long run. We really feel that he's going to be completely healed for the season, and he's going to have a great season."
The Colts placed Luck on the physically unable to perform list at the start of training camp. He can be taken off the list at any time between now and the start of the regular season and still be eligible to play in all of the Colts' games, but if he remains on the list at the start of the year, he has to sit out at least the first six games.
We're getting down to crunch time here if Luck is going to be ready for the start of the season, but nobody seems to know when he'll actually get back on the field. Any time he misses would obviously be a massive blow to Indianapolis' playoff hopes. Their backup quarterbacks are Scott Tolzein and Stephen Morris, who are not exactly world-beaters. It's not a surprise that they considered signing potential replacements, and even though it should be, it is not a surprise that they apparently did not consider signing Kaepernick. There doesn't appear to be any interest in his services at this point despite the fact that he is clearly the best quarterback left on the market, and is better than some quarterbacks already on rosters.