Q: How is your ankle feeling?A: I can honestly say I feel it getting better. I've been able to do more and more. Every couple days, another improvement.
Q: When we saw you in June you said you were close to 100%.A: I said that?
Q: You said the only reason you weren't at the offseason workouts at Bergen Catholic was because you didn't have to be there.A: There were things that I was confident I could do then and even now. It's more important that you take it slow. I listened to the Maurice Jones-Drew interview yesterday. He was saying some of these similar things. It was nice to see somebody having the same issues. It's tough. It takes a lot of patience and I'm anxious to get out there again. I want to do everything right and not have any setbacks. Move forward and be able to be successful again when I get back.
Q: What's the next step for you as far as what you have to show or what you have to feel before you can get back to practice?A: I don't know. I'm leaving that up to the trainers. I know that when I get back I just want to pick up where I left off last year. In the Cowboys game I felt very comfortable. Things were coming to me, reading defenses and catching the ball, running routes and it was starting to feel like college again a little bit. I won't say it's easy but it was starting to come together and I want to pick right back up there. I've been in meetings and everything as if I'm going to practice with everybody else. Things are clicking, answering questions and I know the offense as good as I ever have so I just can't wait for that opportunity. Give me nod, I'll put the cleats back on and get back out between the white lines.
Q: So is this not healing properly?A: I wouldn't say that. I think it's probably healing just fine. It's just how it happens.
Q: Do you anticipate any further procedures might be needed?A: I don't think so, no, not at all.
Q: So you've eliminated that?A: Yeah. We're not going that route anymore. We didn't have the surgery right after the season because we didn't think it was necessary. The doctors could tell that it was going to heal a certain way on its own and it didn't. So the idea was to get everything back in order so everything will do as they had originally anticipated.
Q: Did they think something was going to be still…A: I don't know. I really don't know. Because we had so much time with the lockout, we weren't so concerned with timeframe. It was more, use all the time you've got and come back as healthy as you possibly can and we'll take it from there. There was no set schedule saying we need you here by this time from the training staff or the team.
Q: I know you don't know when you're going to be back but do you think practice is days away, weeks away, months away?A: I couldn't tell you.
Q: No idea?A: Couldn't tell you. I definitely don't think it's months away. I feel it coming soon. I hesitate to say anything with specifics just because I don't know. I don't know how it's going to respond the more we keep doing things. They might say hey, you're good to go tomorrow, they might not. The best thing I can do is be on my toes. I'm excited for it. I'm anxious. I get tired of answering the questions. My peers, my teammates, they're excited for me to comeback, too. I want to be a part of the team again as fast as possible and as much they want me.
