ESPN:
Despite returning to practice only Wednesday from a torn Achilles in April, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs is targeting and expecting to play Sunday versus the Houston Texans, according to league sources.
Sources said that even Suggs’ family and friends have plans to travel to Houston in anticipation of watching him stage one of the quickest returns from this type of significant injury by any athlete.
“Yes, that’s still the plan,” one source texted Thursday.
Baltimore still wants to make sure there are no setbacks this week, especially Thursday, when Suggs returns to the training facility after his first day of practice since last season. Plus, Suggs appears to have added weight during his layoff that he may try to shed in coming weeks, the source said.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh continually has declined to put a timetable on Suggs’ return, and many have believed it would be mid-November.
Before this season, Suggs had played in all 16 games in eight of his nine NFL seasons, missing three games in 2009 with a knee injury. If he is able to return Sunday, it would be a big boost to a Ravens defense that lost its inspirational leader, linebacker Ray Lewis, to a torn triceps and top cornerback Lardarius Webb to a knee injury last week.
Harbaugh, however, cautioned Wednesday that the team wasn’t expecting too much too soon from Suggs, who was named the 2011 NFL Defensive Player of the Year after a 14-sack season.
“To what extent, to what he’s able to do, I think we should temper our expectations a little bit,” Harbaugh said. “He’s coming off a very serious injury. I think he’s worked really hard. He’s done a great job with the rehab, he’s followed protocol. He had no setbacks throughout the course of the whole deal.”
But more and more it’s looking like there’s a real chance, maybe a better-than-real chance, that Suggs will make his season debut Sunday against the Texans.
