To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t thinking much of it until recently while reading the article topic from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that I covered yesterday, in which one of the paper’s reporters on the Pittsburgh Steelers beat made the case that it would be in the team’s best interests to sign veteran quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
A key part of Paul Zeisse’s premise was that the abdominal injury suffered by backup quarterback Landry Jones could linger. To be perfectly honest, this is a topic best covered by our resident doctor, Melanie Friedlander. Perhaps she might ultimately put together a piece on the topic.
But I now find myself wondering if Jones’ injury will actually become a concern. Admittedly, I must plead ignorance about the nature and recovery time of abdominal injuries, but some basic research suggests that it can get tricky, and could linger.
So the basic question here is a simple one: should there be legitimate concern over the status of Landry Jones heading into the regular season, and if so, what, if anything, should be done to address said concern?
I don’t know the answer. Obviously. None of us know the answer. The only thing we can go by is simply following practice reports and what coaches and players might say about his status when asked. As Alex Kozora noted last week, he has returned to practice, but done very little.
According to his reports, Jones was essentially participating in a glorified rehab process, joining select team drills in which he merely handed the ball off to running backs. According to pre-game reports on Sunday, I believe it was said that he was throwing passes during warmups, but it is unclear how much of an indication that is of his actual progress.
It remains to be seen whether or not Jones is going to play at any point this preseason, but it would certainly be in the Steelers’ best interests that he does. While he may have four years of experience in the league and knows the offense well, he is certainly not so polished that he does not need the reps.
Should that pose a problem, then perhaps another arrangement, even temporary, may have to be sought. I have a hard time envisioning the Steelers wanting to enter the regular season opener with Joshua Dobbs being one snap away from going into the game.
