According to longtime Indianapolis Colts Pro Bowl veteran defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, he is hopeful about returning from a season-ending neck injury and ensuing surgery for the team\u2019s training camp occurring in mid-to-late July (via ESPN\u2019s Stephen Holder):<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old veteran defensive tackle initially suffered the neck injury in Week 9 of last year on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a>. Fresh off of injured reserve, he would return 7 weeks later during Week 16 at home against the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> on Monday Night Football.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n However, Buckner didn\u2019t exactly look right on the field and the neck injury still lingered, and he was placed on season-ending injured reserve soon thereafter before getting surgery on his balking neck.<\/p>\n As a consistent interior catalyst for the Colts defense, and arguably (and consistently) the team\u2019s most valuable player up until his injury limited last season, Buckner is coming off a 2025 campaign in which he recorded 47 tackles (30 s0lo), 9 tackles for loss, and 4.0 sacks during 10 games.<\/p>\n Along with veteran run stuffer Grover Stewart<\/a>, when fully healthy, they form one of the better starting defensive tackle tandems in the league. The Colts did bolster their depth behind Buckner by acquiring former Green Bay Packers<\/a> starting defensive tackle Colby Wooden<\/a> and 4th-year defensive tackle Ade Adebamore also returns.<\/p>\n However, getting Buckner back and fully right would be a big boost for Lou Anarumo\u2019s revamped Colts defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to longtime Indianapolis Colts Pro Bowl veteran defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, he is hopeful about returning from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[117,21255,2005,2793,12158,7,345,4987,2004,392,2381,5614,6,57,252,4881],"class_list":{"0":"post-871719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-baltimore-ravens","9":"tag-colby-wooden","10":"tag-colts","11":"tag-defensive-tackle","12":"tag-deforest-buckner","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-green-bay-packers","15":"tag-grover-stewart","16":"tag-indianapolis","17":"tag-indianapolis-colts","18":"tag-indianapoliscolts","19":"tag-neck-injury","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","22":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","23":"tag-stephen-holder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116447226391971683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}