Update 1/29 8:30 am: Here is the latest regarding Hines Ward’s injury stats for Super Bowl 43 on Sunday:
As expected (see below), Hines Ward did not practice Wednesday and is listed as questionable. He is expected to test out the knee today. Our friends over at Cleveland Frowns have a great take on the situation:
His secret? Simple. He’s doing “extra rehab” to make sure that his knee is OK. “Ward has put himself on a round-the-clock rehabilitation scheduling, twice as much as doctors ordered. He wakes multiple times during the night to do more exercises, take more electrical stimulation, apply more ice.”
Double rehab! Well, shoot, why doesn’t everybody do this?
Maybe because THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS DOUBLE REHAB. The Steelers employ highly-trained and highly-paid medical professionals to keep their players healthy. If they thought there was a better plan to optimize Ward’s health on Sunday, they’d surely have recommended it to him.
So Hines is either lying to us, or messing himself up even further.
Also, JJ Arrington returned to practice on a limited basis for the Cardinals on Wednesday. Feel free to continue to the original post below for more information regarding Hines Ward, and a pretty funny video from the guys at Flash Sports Tonight.
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So far so good. The teams have been in Tampa for one night and no one has, as of yet, gotten into trouble. But more on that in a bit.
First, a quick Hines Ward injury update, which was one of the biggest stories during the off-week before the Super Bowl. The injury status of Steelers WR and Super Bowl 40 MVP Hines Ward is currently listed as questionable, but everyone seems to expect Ward to play on his sprained knee, and play well.
Ward has been, historically, one of the most clutch big-game players during the current era of Steelers football; and I think we all know that if he can walk, he will make an impact on the game Sunday.
Here is a what a few of the most recent reports around the web are saying:
From Damon Hack at SI.com:
“That’s the guy,” Steelers offensive coordinator Bruce Arians said of Ward, “[who] makes a lot of things happen in big ball games.”
Besides Ben Roethlisberger and Troy Polamalu, Ward is the player the Steelers can least afford to be without, and the story of Super Bowl XLIII may be how effective Ward can be despite spraining the medial collateral ligament in his right knee in Pittsburgh’s AFC Championship victory.
Last week, while his teammates prepared for afternoon practice, Ward was sitting on a training table watching television with his leg propped up. Even through the glass, you could see he was smiling.
Along with undergoing rehab at the team’s practice facility, Ward has woken up several times in the middle of the night to treat the knee with ice and electrical stimulation. An injury of his kind normally takes about a month to heal. Ward will be playing on it after only two weeks.
He said there was no way he was skipping the Super Bowl. If he had to do extra rehab to make it to Raymond James Stadium, it would be done.
From James Walker at ESPN.com:
Hines Ward isn’t cutting or turning yet on an injury that sometimes takes weeks and weeks to heal. He’s not running pass patterns or sprinting with much speed.
Not playing in the Super Bowl? Ward can’t imagine it, and neither can any of his Pittsburgh Steelers teammates.
The one question hanging over the AFC champion Steelers as their practice week begins is whether the wide receiver who owns most of the franchise’s career pass-catching records will play with a sprained knee. To Ward, there’s no question at all.
From Ed Bouchette at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette:
Hines Ward said his injured right knee feels better and he would like to practice when the Steelers go back to work at the University of South Florida facilities.
“It feels better,” Ward said several hours after the Steelers charter landed here around noon yesterday. “I don’t have a brace on, I walk around fine. It’s not going to be 100 percent, I’m not going to trick anybody, but I think I’m going to be good, to be able to go out and perform like I want to.”
The Steelers receiver took a break yesterday from a stepped-up pace of rehabilitation on his injured knee yesterday.
“I’ve been rehabbing all weekend long. Off today — I did a little rehab this morning before we came down here.”
He will resume this morning, then attend the Steelers media interviews at Raymond James Stadium and “see where we’re at.”
“I really can’t say because I haven’t run or cut or done anything,” said Ward, who did not practice last week after the right MCL was sprained in the first quarter of the Jan. 18 AFC championship game. “I was just constantly getting treatment, 24 hours around the clock.”
So expect Hines Ward to play. How effective he will be remains to be seen, but there is no question that just having him on the field — even at 70-75% — is a huge boon to the Steelers’ chances of capturing a sixth Super Bowl crown.
The only other major injury of note heading into Sunday is the status of Arizona RB/KR J.J. Arrington. He did not practice last week and the Cardinals are unsure whether he will be able to go in Super Bowl 43; but they are hopeful.
Now, getting back to the whole nobody-has-been-arrested-thing yet. While both teams appear relatively healthy, and should have their full complement of players ready to go on Sunday, there is always the threat of a Super Bowl week arrest (think Eugene Robinson of Atlanta earlier this decade) that could throw a wrench in the plans.
And as Vinny Tresslini of Flash Sports Tonight reminds us at the end of the newest FST Flash Report, players need to stay out of the Tampa-area houses of ill-repute…or be prepared to pay some hush money.
Watch:
That’s it for now. We’ll keep updating the injury reports if any relevant news comes out.
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