Shemar Stewart is back on the practice field for the Bengals after missing a little over a month with a knee hyperextension.
ESPN’s Ben Baby reported Stewart’s return as the second-year edge rusher resumed work in full pads on Wednesday and took part in normal drills. It’s a major step forward after the injury he suffered during the opening week of training camp.
The setback came on Stewart’s second rep of team drills that day, when he got tangled up with now-released backup offensive lineman Cody Ford and went to the ground. The Texas A&M product injured his left knee on the play, and Cincinnati initially expected the recovery to take several weeks.
"He fortunately avoided major injury," Taylor said in July. "He hyperextended his knee; it will be several weeks. It's hard to pinpoint exactly how much of training camp that will be."
Taylor also said at the time, "Very fortunate, because it obviously looked bad. The good news is we'll be getting him back sooner rather than later."
Now Stewart is back in the mix, with more practices ahead as he works toward the season opener against Tampa Bay. Taylor said Stewart would be on the rehab field this week, but the defender is already making strong progress.
Cincinnati still has one more practice scheduled tomorrow before the team gets a few days off ahead of Week 1. Even with Stewart back, the Bengals were still without Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins at practice.
Taylor said he feels good about the work the team put in during camp, but made it clear none of that will matter once the games begin.
"Well, I think we put in really good work. I feel good about that part of it," Taylor said about training camp.
"That won't mean anything beyond this first game. We've got to go out there and have a great plan, and we got to understand the plan, and we got to be able to execute it.
We've got to be able to put guys in positions to make the plays, because nobody's going to care after this first game how training camp went. We just got to put ourselves in position to win.
"So, I feel like we covered a lot of the things that that we set out to cover. So we checked those boxes.
Now we've got to check the right (game boxes). Do we have a great plan in place, and are we putting our guys in a position to go execute it, so that we can start 1-0?"
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Across the AFC North, the Steelers continue to leave themselves room to maneuver, and general manager Omar Khan has been open about why recent trades and quarterback decisions have not closed the book on roster additions. He also touched on injury updates and the possibility of adding a veteran safety, which keeps the pressure on Cincinnati to watch how Pittsburgh fills out the depth chart before the season settles into place. [Read more 🡒]