The first day of Indianapolis Colts training camp came with a slight surprise as linebacker Shaquille Leonard was out with the first-team defense taking starting reps for both the 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 portions of practice Wednesday.
This comes as a bit of a surprise as general manager Chris Ballard pumped the brakes on Leonard being ready for contact immediately in his session with the media yesterday after not being placed on the Physically Unable To Perform list.
Shaquille Leonard is pretty darn active for Day 1.
All of positional work. And now has taken a couple of starting reps to begin 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 sessions.
— Kevin Bowen (@KBowen1070) July 26, 2023
“He will start out at practice and pretty much just go through individual, start building his endurance back up. But slowly but surely, we’ll get there. He has worked extremely hard,” Ballard said during his training camp presser. “There is really no timeline on exactly when he’ll be completely cleared for contact, but it’s good to get him back – just his presence back on the team, back out in drill work is important for us.”
Even Leonard himself was a bit surprised at the workload he saw during the first training camp practice. There was no contact, of course, as the players were in shorts and t-shirts, but it was an encouraging step for The Maniac.
“It most definitely surprised me. I was nervous; I felt like this was a game day for me. First time in a while, no sleep last night, jitterbugs all morning, I probably didn’t truly feel like myself until after individual,” Leonard said Wednesday. “I was so nervous, then after that, it felt like right where I left off. Coming in and being a leader for this team and being able to run around and hopefully make some plays.”
Perhaps Leonard is further along than originally speculated or perhaps the Colts want to see how much Leonard can handle in a live setting. Either way, it is certainly encouraging to see Leonard doing so much on the field so early into camp.