According to the Indianapolis Star’s Stephen Holder, the Indianapolis Colts have designated outside linebacker Trent Cole as their sole ‘return player’ off of the team’s injured reserve:
Trent Cole is back practicing. Still on IR but looking toward a return. Has an exemption to practice for 21 days before they must activate
— Stephen Holder (@HolderStephen) November 28, 2016
As Holder notes, while Cole practices with the team, the Colts have 21 days to decide whether to active the veteran pass rusher off of injured reserve. He was initially placed on injured reserve following Week 3 due to a lingering back injury.
A week ago, Holder reported that Cole was seen doing rehabilitation work with the Colts training staff, and it was speculated that he could be potentially close to a return with the team.
There’s no question that the Colts could sorely use pass rushing help, as their defense ranks tied for 20th in the least amount of sacks with 22 total sacks–having failed to sack Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger this past Thursday night.
While Erik Walden leads the Colts with 8.0 sacks, no other player on the Colts defense has more than 3.0 sacks.
Nevertheless, it’s fair to question just how much the 34 year old veteran pass rusher, Cole, has left in the tank. Specifically, the 12-year veteran has just 3.0 sacks in 16 games with the Colts over the past two seasons.
Now coming off a back injury, the question will be whether Cole regain his prior form with the Philadelphia Eagles or will the Colts get more of the same underwhelming pass rushing performances.
Cole is currently tied for 45th among the NFL’s all-time career sack leaders with 88.5 career sacks and is in the last year of a 2-year, $14M deal that was signed during last year’s offseason–the last year being later restructured.
If he does return, expect Cole to join Erik Walden and Robert Mathis among the Colts pass rushing rotation with presumably one of Lavar Edwards, Curt Maggitt, and Chris Carter being the odd man out on the Colts active roster as it relates to the outside linebacker position.