Reggie Wayne is three months removed from the ACL tear that ended his 2013 season.
Wayne went down in the Colts 39-33 victory over the Denver Broncos on Oct. 20 and was placed on injured reserve.
Indianapolis Colts general manager Ryan Grigson joined Alex Marvez and Vic Carucci on Sirius XM NFL Radio and discussed Wayne’s recovery on Tuesday night.
“He’s doing great,” Grigson said. “The first thing about Reggie was the guy refused to use crutches. He was at the (Houston) Texans game (two weeks after the injury), flew from Miami, Mr. Irsay took care of him and flew him on the plane and everything and got him there and you know the guy refused to use crutches. That’s the kind of tenacity and mindset he has in terms of getting well and he will not take a day off. He doesn’t stop grinding.”
Wayne is 35 years old and coming off a major knee injury. However, Wayne said he believes he’ll be better than he was before the injury. The player Wayne was before the injury was stellar. Wayne posted eight 1,000-yard seasons in nine years before going down in Week 7.
Grigson says he believes Wayne is using the doubt that he can return to the same level as motivation in his recovery.
“I think he loves, right now, that people might be doubting him and his age and things like that,” Grigson said. “I think he uses that to create a chip on his shoulder, which I think is great because the first thing I thought of when it happened was I looked up how many years Jerry Rice played after he got hurt and I believe it was actually eight more seasons. So I texted him that and he’s got a long way to go before he’s going to hang it up because I feel if anybody is going to be ready for training camp and ready to roll it’s going to be Reggie Wayne.”