Colts Catch the Injury Bug
With less than a week into training camp, the Indianapolis Colts have already caught the injury bug. Arguably their two most valuable offensive players, Carson Wentz and Quenton Nelson, have broken bones in their foot. Wentz had his surgery on August 2nd and Nelson will be having his in the upcoming days. The timetable on both of their returns is five to twelve weeks.
This straight up sucks for Colts fans, there is no other way to put it. It's also hard to get a good grasp on what week they will return because that is a 7 week time table. Based off of Wentz's injury history, I could see coach Frank Reich holding him out for a long period of time. This is extremely unfortunate for the Colts because they have one of the toughest firsts halves of the season. In their first five games, the Colts play the Seahawks, Rams, Titans, Dolphins, and Ravens. All of those teams had winning records in 2020 and should be tough games for the Colts to win without Wentz and Nelson. I also expect Nelson to comeback on the ladder half of the timetable. He's 6'5, 330 lbs. and it wouldn't be smart to rush him out there after foot surgery. That's a lot of weight on one foot, those injuries can linger and really need time to heal.
This situation is similar to what happened to the 49ers last season. They had a bunch of injuries at the start of camp, like Deebo Samuel breaking his foot, which led to them being out of shape by the start of the season. This resulted in an immense amount of injuries throughout the season. The moral of the story, so the Colts don't end up like the 2020 49ers, is to not rush their players back.
Unfortunately for the Eagles, this means that Carson Wentz probably won't play 70% of the season. If Wentz plays 70% of the season, the Eagles will be rewarded a first round pick as compensation for this trade. This also means that we get to see what Jacob Eason is really about. Eason was the Colts fourth round pick out of the University of Washington in 2020. He's known for being able to make tight-window throws and thrives in an RPO style offense. In college, he had an issue getting off his first read and needed to fix his drop back and his habit of not stepping through his throws. After sitting behind Philip Rivers for a year and getting to know Carson Wentz, he has the information to clean all of that up.
The Colts need to be patient with Nelson and Wentz, it's a long season and they shouldn't rush them back into action before they are ready. Frank Reich is a great coach and should be able to find ways to win with Eason under center. Colts fans, be patient...