LB Dennis Gardeck familiar with recovering from torn ACL
Arizona Cardinals linebacker Dennis Gardeck had a fantastic season. In addition to being a stud special teams player, he made an impact on defense for the first time in his career with seven sacks in only 93 snaps.
However, his season was cut short when he tore his ACL in December against the Philadelphia Eagles.
This is not the first time he has had to come back from this injury.
According to AZCardinals.com’s Darren Urban, Gardeck tore the same ACL in high school.
Gardeck is not ready for football activities. He is only now doing light sprints.
His mentality is to try and do more. He often has to be held back by trainers. More isn’t better in many cases in recovery.
Will he be ready for training camp? Common sense would say no, but head coach Kliff Kingsbury thinks it is possible with Gardeck.
“I wouldn’t put anything past Dennis,” he said after minicamp concluded. “He looks great and it sounds like he is ahead of schedule by all accounts, so we will see how he feels going into training camp.”
It is most likely he begins on the physically unable to perform list (PUP). The start of the season would be just shy of nine months from the injury, which is roughly the fastest we have seen any athlete recover.
That would suggest that landing on PUP to start the year with the chance to make an impact over the final half of the season would be reasonable.
That said, Kingsbury thinks Gardeck’s timetable could be shorter.
“If he’s not ready for the start (of training camp), I’d expect him to be ready soon thereafter.”
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