Green Bay — Linebacker Desmond Bishop says he doesn’t want to hurry back too soon from the torn hamstring injury that ended his 2012 season. He may be cautious and sit out the start of organized team activities this week.
But he does expect to be a full go by training camp.
“Oh, training camp, I’ll be 110%,” Bishop said. “For sure.”
For more on Bishop and the forces that led to this 2013 season for him, we sat down with the linebacker last week. Here’s today’s story. Bishop does not seem to be too concerned about the hamstring injury, or the fact that the Packers have retained both starters from last season at the position. Rehab has been strenuous, but also a success, Bishop said.
“There are a lot of things that go into rehab that I didn’t even foresee,” Bishop said. “You don’t really know until you get hurt. You have to nourish back what you got injured but you also have to keep other parts of your body strong. When something’s injured, you have to work around it. So it can be difficult. But it was a good off-season. I think I got a lot accomplished in getting myself healthy.”
The key has been strengthening, the hamstring, the quad and all muscle fibers around the tear. Today, the tear isn’t the problem. Bishop wants to practice at OTA’s this week.
For now, though, he’s trying to keep perspective.
“My injury side is perfect. It’s 100%,” Bishop said. “But I have little nicks and nacks here just from being out and trying to get back in. So we’ll see how I feel, but I don’t really want to rush it. There’s no point in rushing it right now.”
All eyes will be on Bishop this year and how he responds once he does get on the field. The Packers covered their backs this off-season by restructuring A.J. Hawk‘s deal and re-signing Brad Jones. When healthy, Bishop is the best of the three. In his two years as the starter — 2010 and 2011 — Bishop had 218 tackles, eight sacks, four forced fumbles and nine pass break-ups.
As he talked about in today’s story, Bishop realizes many fans will view him as a savior of sorts in Green Bay, a player who can get them past the San Francisco 49ers.
So which Desmond Bishop should they expect to see? It’s a different set of expectations for a player who wrote “2013 Defensive MVP” in his notebook.
“It’s kind of different from people not really expecting much from you to you do stuff good and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a plus,'” Bishop said. “To now, people expect, ‘OK, we got Des Bishop back.’ It’s kind of a different light. Maybe this is what I’ve always wanted, perhaps. But with that, that can be a double-edged sword. But I’m not worried. All I can do is do me. If I do me then I’m good. I’m good. I’ll just be Des Bishop 55.”
Via: Tyler Dunne | jsonline.com
