On Wednesday, we posted about former Cowboys defensive tackle Jay Ratliff taking a trip to the doctor in hopes of getting cleared to work out for teams in hopes of landing a job before the end of the 2013 season.
Ratliff’s agent Mark Slough has sent a letter to teams telling them that his client has received exactly that. Ratliff met with Dr. William Myers, who operated on him last December, and received the green light to pursue an immediate comeback to the NFL.
“Jay will now continue his individual workouts in Dallas and work hard to regain further strength and improve his conditioning,” Slough wrote, via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “His goal is to be ready to [work out] for clubs in a couple of weeks. He currently weighs 304 [pounds] and is in very good shape ... just needs to take his workouts up a notch.”
Ed Werder of ESPN reported Wednesday that six teams have reached out to Ratliff and that number could go up now that he’s gotten the medical go-ahead to resume playing. Given the quick turnaround from last week’s comments from Slough about the severity of Ratliff’s injuries to this week’s medical clearance, it would seem that tension between Ratliff and the Cowboys had as much or more to do with his departure than the now-dismissed notion that he wasn’t going to have a chance to help them on the field this season.