The Colts finally get some good injury news as Malik Hooker has recovered from his hamstring injury, and he’s ready to start practicing.
Training camp has gotten off to a rough start for the Colts as they’ve had to place several key players on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list to begin camp.
Andrew Luck has not fully recovered from his offseason shoulder surgery, Clayton Geathers is not even close to being ready to play after last season’s neck injury, Kendall Langford and Brian Schwenke joined them on the PUP list, and Malik Hooker tweaked his hamstring in a conditioning test before the beginning of camp.
Hooker spent the offseason recovering from shoulder and sports hernia injuries, which caused him to miss all of the Colts’ offseason activities.
Thankfully, Hooker’s tweaked hamstring was not serious and he’s been activated from the PUP list four days after suffering that injury during the conditioning test.
Hooker’s questionable injury history may have contributed to his slide down to the draft board to the Colts’ pick at number 15 overall after he was widely regarded as a top-10, and even a top-5 prospect.
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To the Colts’ medical staff’s credit, this hamstring tweak during the conditioning test looks unrelated to the injuries he was recovering from this offseason. His tweaked hamstring was probably the result of having a limited offseason, which caused him to come into training camp a little out of shape.
Hooker is expected to be an extremely important piece of this Colts secondary, especially with the absence of Clayton Geathers for at least the year’s first six games.
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It is imperative that Hooker gets plenty of reps during training camp in order to get him prepared for a large role in 2017.
With a healthy hamstring, Hooker can now shift his complete focus to learning the playbook and getting ready for the regular season.