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Tuesday, May 9
FEELING GOOD AGAIN
By John Oehser - Colts.com
June Recovering after Off-Season Surgery
INDIANAPOLIS –
Cato June saw it immediately.
He knew just as quickly what Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy meant when discussing the effects of injuries on June last season.
June, an outside linebacker for the Colts, made the Pro Bowl last season, and did so despite playing through not only a knee injury, but also a sports hernia injury. June played well enough that Dungy said he didn’t notice much change in June late last season.
But when Dungy reviewed game tape from last season he saw it, and June said he saw the same thing:
A step lost here. A coverage not as tight there.
A ball not broken on quite as quickly here and there.
Not a huge difference, Dungy said, and not enough to force June from the lineup, but enough to make Dungy and June optimistic about next season.
Because June has had surgery this off-season to correct the sports hernia. And he had a procedure done to address the knee.
He feels much, much better, he said.
“The first two weeks were rough, but since then it’s gotten progressively better,” June said with a smile during the recent Colts’ 2006 rookie mini-camp at the Union Federal Football Center.
Which can only mean good things for the Colts’ defense next season, Dungy said.
“I hope getting the surgery done means we’ll see that same opening-day player,” Dungy said.
The opening-day player – the healthy June – had a fourth-quarter interception return for a touchdown that clinched a season-opening 24-7 victory at Baltimore. June then had four more interceptions – including another returned for a touchdown – in the next five games. At that point, he led the NFL in interceptions.
He finished the season third on the Colts with 109 tackles, including 65 solos. He also finished with the five interceptions in the regular season, and added another in the Colts’ Divisional Playoff loss to Pittsburgh.
In his second season as a starter, he was voted to the Pro Bowl for the first time, and he made the game as a starter.
But around the midway point of the season, June said he began feeling the effects of the sports hernia injury. The injury is similar to the one that forced Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb to miss much of last season.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he said. “It wasn’t like I did a cut and pulled something. It was the type of injury that gradually got worse. The only way to heal it is to repair it.”
June played the Colts’ first 13 games, missing the last three regular-season games after Indianapolis clinched a third consecutive AFC South title, a first-round bye and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
“Everybody has knicks and knacks,” June said. “Everybody has things that bother them. Some people can play with injuries and some people can’t. No one wants to sit down and watch.”
The second half of the season was a weekly test, June said. He practiced sparingly, played on Sundays, then repeated the routine the following week hoping to be healthy enough to play.
June, asked recently how much the injury bothered him, laughed loudly, then said it was hard to explain the effects of the injury, but it certainly limited him.
“It was tough to move certain ways and do exactly what you want to do,” said June, who moved from safety to outside linebacker after the Colts made him a sixth-round selection from the University of Michigan in the 2003 NFL Draft.
“It makes you have to think a little more instead of trying to rely on your athletic ability when something like that happens. As the season got on, it got worse.”
Which Dungy said was obvious in February when reviewing last season.
“It’s funny,” Dungy said. “I really couldn’t tell as it (the season) went on. We knew he had more and more days off during the week. He’d play Sunday and he still graded out well. Where I noticed it was as we were going back over the season, looking at the cutups.
“You’d see the same coverages from September in December. It’s quite a stark contrast when you look at the beginning of the year to the last. He just wasn’t the athlete he was on opening day.”
June said he noticed it at the same time, and he had felt it late last season, too. After the three-week rest late in the season, he played in the playoffs, rested for three weeks and played in the Pro Bowl in early February.
Later that month, and in early March, he said he underwent the procedures. He isn’t expected to participate in the team’s mini-camp later this month, or in the team’s summer-school sessions, but said, “by training camp, I should be up and ready to go.”
“Last year was frustrating at the end,” June said. “I’m looking forward to getting going again. (Last year) I couldn’t explode like I wanted to. I couldn’t open up and run like I wanted to. I just couldn’t do it because the injury wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t the pain. It just wouldn’t allow me to do it. It was one of those things, ‘If I can play through it and be effective and get my job done . . .’ I might not be able to go overboard and do excessive things, but as long as you’re not going out and not getting the job done, that’s when it becomes a problem.
“You want to do everything just because you’re competitive. But you’ve got to look at where you’re really needed by the team. That’s really important. . . .
“I felt like I wanted to be on the field, and do everything I could. Now, next year, I should be completely ready again.”
link to story: www.colts.com/sub.cfm
FEELING GOOD AGAIN
By John Oehser - Colts.com
June Recovering after Off-Season Surgery
INDIANAPOLIS –
Cato June saw it immediately.
He knew just as quickly what Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy meant when discussing the effects of injuries on June last season.
June, an outside linebacker for the Colts, made the Pro Bowl last season, and did so despite playing through not only a knee injury, but also a sports hernia injury. June played well enough that Dungy said he didn’t notice much change in June late last season.
But when Dungy reviewed game tape from last season he saw it, and June said he saw the same thing:
A step lost here. A coverage not as tight there.
A ball not broken on quite as quickly here and there.
Not a huge difference, Dungy said, and not enough to force June from the lineup, but enough to make Dungy and June optimistic about next season.
Because June has had surgery this off-season to correct the sports hernia. And he had a procedure done to address the knee.
He feels much, much better, he said.
“The first two weeks were rough, but since then it’s gotten progressively better,” June said with a smile during the recent Colts’ 2006 rookie mini-camp at the Union Federal Football Center.
Which can only mean good things for the Colts’ defense next season, Dungy said.
“I hope getting the surgery done means we’ll see that same opening-day player,” Dungy said.
The opening-day player – the healthy June – had a fourth-quarter interception return for a touchdown that clinched a season-opening 24-7 victory at Baltimore. June then had four more interceptions – including another returned for a touchdown – in the next five games. At that point, he led the NFL in interceptions.
He finished the season third on the Colts with 109 tackles, including 65 solos. He also finished with the five interceptions in the regular season, and added another in the Colts’ Divisional Playoff loss to Pittsburgh.
In his second season as a starter, he was voted to the Pro Bowl for the first time, and he made the game as a starter.
But around the midway point of the season, June said he began feeling the effects of the sports hernia injury. The injury is similar to the one that forced Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb to miss much of last season.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he said. “It wasn’t like I did a cut and pulled something. It was the type of injury that gradually got worse. The only way to heal it is to repair it.”
June played the Colts’ first 13 games, missing the last three regular-season games after Indianapolis clinched a third consecutive AFC South title, a first-round bye and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
“Everybody has knicks and knacks,” June said. “Everybody has things that bother them. Some people can play with injuries and some people can’t. No one wants to sit down and watch.”
The second half of the season was a weekly test, June said. He practiced sparingly, played on Sundays, then repeated the routine the following week hoping to be healthy enough to play.
June, asked recently how much the injury bothered him, laughed loudly, then said it was hard to explain the effects of the injury, but it certainly limited him.
“It was tough to move certain ways and do exactly what you want to do,” said June, who moved from safety to outside linebacker after the Colts made him a sixth-round selection from the University of Michigan in the 2003 NFL Draft.
“It makes you have to think a little more instead of trying to rely on your athletic ability when something like that happens. As the season got on, it got worse.”
Which Dungy said was obvious in February when reviewing last season.
“It’s funny,” Dungy said. “I really couldn’t tell as it (the season) went on. We knew he had more and more days off during the week. He’d play Sunday and he still graded out well. Where I noticed it was as we were going back over the season, looking at the cutups.
“You’d see the same coverages from September in December. It’s quite a stark contrast when you look at the beginning of the year to the last. He just wasn’t the athlete he was on opening day.”
June said he noticed it at the same time, and he had felt it late last season, too. After the three-week rest late in the season, he played in the playoffs, rested for three weeks and played in the Pro Bowl in early February.
Later that month, and in early March, he said he underwent the procedures. He isn’t expected to participate in the team’s mini-camp later this month, or in the team’s summer-school sessions, but said, “by training camp, I should be up and ready to go.”
“Last year was frustrating at the end,” June said. “I’m looking forward to getting going again. (Last year) I couldn’t explode like I wanted to. I couldn’t open up and run like I wanted to. I just couldn’t do it because the injury wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t the pain. It just wouldn’t allow me to do it. It was one of those things, ‘If I can play through it and be effective and get my job done . . .’ I might not be able to go overboard and do excessive things, but as long as you’re not going out and not getting the job done, that’s when it becomes a problem.
“You want to do everything just because you’re competitive. But you’ve got to look at where you’re really needed by the team. That’s really important. . . .
“I felt like I wanted to be on the field, and do everything I could. Now, next year, I should be completely ready again.”
link to story: www.colts.com/sub.cfm
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