The news broke this morning that Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs tore his Achilles this past week while reportedly playing basketball and with that news the expectations have followed that he will miss the entire 2012 season as a result. Suggs has a different outlook though and seems to think he can return by the later part of October or early part of November. What he has working in his favor right now is that he suffered the injury early on in the offseason and the Ravens have the use of the PUP list at their full disposal instead of being forced to place him on the injured reserve list at the start of the season.
When Suggs shows up for Ravens training camp he will be placed on the ACTIVE PUP list and stay there for all of training camp and the entire preseason. When the final roster moves are made before week 1, the Ravens will more than likely move Suggs to the RESERVE PUP list, meaning he must miss the first 6 weeks of action at a minimum. At the end of those 6 weeks a 3 week window opens up on Suggs and he must begin practicing during that window, even if it is on the final day of the 3 weeks. Once he begins practicing another 3 week window opens and the Ravens must make the decision of whether or not to place Suggs on the 53 man roster or move him to injured reserve by the end of those 3 weeks.
So basically the Ravens have up until week 13 to make the final decision on what to do with Suggs. It should be noted that the Ravens play the Pittsburgh Steelers in weeks 11 and 13, so Suggs very well could be back in the lineup for at least one, if not both of those games, assuming his rehab goes fine. We are roughly 18 weeks away from the start of the 2012 season right now and by week 13 Suggs will be roughly 31 weeks removed from surgery, so I would not be so quick to say that he will miss the entire season or both games against the Steelers for that matter.
