I'm sure if you asked AP during his acl injury if he WANTED to play he'd say yes...doesn't mean it's the right move. The right TEAM move is to do what's best for each player's circumstances and situation.

Originally Posted by: musccy 

My point with AP is if you ask any player if they want to play they'll say yes, but that doesn't make it the right decision for the player or team. How did rushing back work out for rg3 and the redskins, or cm3 in his first game back with the cast.

as pfwt just wrote about, this isn't some injury where you can wear some protective gear like cm3 or rg3. Some doctors with many more years of schooling and many more years of experience than you, me, MM, AR, or ESPN have said it's not safe or wise to return yet...I trust their opinion.

Originally Posted by: musccy 

This will feed into my point below, but I'm assuming that risk was assessed and determined he'd be fine to return. With that said, wearing the club was obviously significantly restricting his effectiveness that first game back.

Texas' initial point (I'm not saying you're saying this) was that he should just play on because he has all offseason to recover. We saw with D.D. and Woodson in the Superbowl where they didn't return. Admittedly that's a bit of a stretch because it was a "fresh" injury, but point being you don't assess the injury solely based on a looming offseasonto recover or the stakes of the game(s) you're in. If there's a high risk of re-injury, or an unlikeliness that you'll be effective, you don't play him. I'm 100% confident that both of these scenarios are being tediously considered with A.R. right now.