The Colts will take advantage of the NFL’s new IR rule, but they player they will have in mind for a return is rather interesting. Despite Samson Ebukam having suffered an Achilles tear, Indianapolis is not closing the door on a return.
Ebukam went down in late July, but rather than shelve him for the full season, the Colts are keeping a door open for a late-season re-emergence. Indy is planning to place Ebukam on IR with a return designation, per the Indianapolis Star’s Joel Erickson. This will mean the Colts lose one of their eight injury activations immediately.
Indianapolis is not stopping with Ebukam here. The team is also planning to place linebacker Cameron McGrone on IR with a return designation, Erickson adds. This will cut the Colts’ IR-return moves from eight to six before the season starts.
Players who landed on IR before 53-man rosters were set previously were out of the picture for those teams, but the NFL passed a rule that will allow teams to designate two players to return before the final 53s surface. Any player placed on IR with this designation will count immediately toward a team’s activation total, whether he returns or not. This would seem to matter with Ebukam, who faces a lengthy rehab effort.
Ebukam delivered a career-best season in 2023, totaling 9.5 sacks to help the Colts rank in the top five in that category. The team still has good depth here, with Kwity Paye, Dayo Odeyingbo and first-rounder Laiatu Latu in the mix. But it clearly views Ebukam as important. Cam Akers suffered a late-July Achilles tear in 2021 and indeed returned late in the regular season. Though, he did not display good form upon returning. The Ravens and 49ers saw Terrell Suggs and Michael Crabtree, respectively, return after offseason Achilles tears. But both players went down well before July in 2012 and ’13.
It is interesting the Colts are prepared to burn another IR-return move on McGrone, a special-teamer who logged 152 defensive snaps last season. They will not make Jelani Woods an IR-return player. Turf toe, which led to a recent surgery, will keep him out. The Colts are placing the third-year tight end on IR without a return designation, Fox59’s Mike Chappell tweets.