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How Fast Can Daniel Jones Go ??? It’s the Last Question in His Return From His Achilles Tear
(By Jonathan Jones)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/751...lles-recovery/
Riley Leonard was hours away from marrying his high-school sweetheart in front of more than 400 people ...... but first, he had to get a quick workout in.
Right down the road from First Baptist Church in Fairhope, Alabama is Philip Rivers’s estate, complete with a 50-yard field in his backyard amid the cornstalks. Because it’s impolite to deny the groom’s request on his wedding day, Leonard, the Indianapolis Colts’ backup quarterback, got his longtime friend and Colts starting quarterback Daniel Jones to join him at Rivers’s home for a morning sweat.
Jones, one of 15 groomsmen at Leonard’s wedding later that day, had an easy out if he didn’t want to join Leonard on that early spring morning. At that point, Jones was less than 4 months removed from surgery on his right Achilles tendon. While he may not have been as active in the Alabama field of dreams as, say, Leonard, or Rivers’s 4-star recruit son Gunner, Jones did enough that day to surprise his longtime personal quarterbacks coach.
“He did a lot,” recalls QB Country founder David Morris, who has worked with Jones since before he had a driver’s license, and with Leonard since he was barely tall enough to ride a roller coaster. “I’ve been through an Achilles myself, and I know that it’s tender and it’s fragile, but I also know that once you start feeling good, you’re so excited. You’ve got to taper him down a little bit in those moments.
“He’s the type of guy where maybe sometimes he pushes too hard, and I’m like, ‘Hey, chill, chill. We don’t need to climb hard in the pocket and throw off-platform here.’ But he looked damn good ...... even then.”
Now, watching Jones at practice, there’s no hint of the injury to the casual observer. Wide receiver Josh Downs said that Jones looked so good at the start of camp that he forgot about the injury. 2 team sources, not authorized to discuss Jones’s health, echoed that, saying that Jones has looked like he never suffered an injury, let alone the sort that can be devastating for professional athletes.
Because the rupture was in Jones’s right foot, you may expect a right-handed quarterback to be a little cautious when he gets to the top of his drop, especially at a joint-practice with the New England Patriots last week. It was the first time he’d shared the field with an opponent since tearing his Achilles at the top of his drop in Jacksonville on December 7th.
“So far it hasn’t impacted him. It’s been phenomenal,” Colts head coach Shane Steichen told
The Athletic after the practice. “During his re-hab process, he attacked it tirelessly. I mean, it was unbelievable. I’m not even kidding when I say this, it was 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. Like all day, training room, weight room, back to the training room, throwing, you name it.
“He’s like, ‘I am going to be ready,’ and he was very confident in that. Some guys when they go through re-hab, they’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m getting there.’ He’s just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be there.’”
None of this is necessarily a surprise to the Colts. They did their homework on Jones back in 2025 when they signed him to a one-year, $14 Million contract to compete with Anthony Richardson for the starting job ...... they knew the kind of competitor that they were getting. More than that, they were comfortable enough with Jones’s re-hab 2 weeks before the wedding workout that they signed him to a 2-year, $88 Million extension ...... the largest 2-year contract in NFL history.
Jones won’t go as far as to say the process was lonely, but he admits that it was long. It is also fairly cut-and-dried to him ...... he listened to the professionals, and did the work. “It’s not that complicated,” he told
The Athletic.
“Throughout this process, I’ve tried really hard to ...... when the trainers tell you that it’s good to do something, or the doctors tell you that you’re good to do something, to trust that and to go with that,” Jones says. “And then your job at that point is to be aggressive and to push it, and to make sure that you’re making the effort. If you trust them and they deem it safe and what you’re supposed to be doing, then it’s time to do it and push it. From that standpoint, I’ve felt good. I think that there’s still some progress to be made ...... and just building up reps on it and getting your body used to pushing off of it again, and feeling it again. I think that there’s a little bit of strength still to improve, but I think that that’s all part of the process, and I feel really good.”
Jones lists the people whom he’s listened to and trusts, everyone from Dr. Martin O’Malley, who performed the surgery on December 9th, to Colts strength-and-conditioning assistant Sam Khym ...... he makes it seem like he just took their word for it, and quietly followed their direction.
But Morris has known Jones for years, well before the Colts quarterback ever got his economics degree from Duke ...... he’s not the type to not ask questions.
“Some guys don’t want to know everything. Sometimes it’s too much information. Daniel wants to know everything,” Morris says. “So when it comes to recovery or training or rest and recovery, he’s going to nerd out on all of that. In the re-hab program, he’s just all-in, and he doesn’t just do it, he wants to know why we’re doing this with particular ligaments or muscle groups ...… and then he may even ask more questions.”
Jones previously suffered a season-ending injury when he tore his ACL midway through the 2023 season, just a few months after he signed a 4-year, $160 Million contract with the New York Giants. This injury and associated recovery were different ...... he was playing the best ball of his career when his Achilles snapped.
The Colts were tied atop the AFC South, and Jones had a shot at both the NFL MVP and Comeback Player of the Year awards. Instead, he missed the rest of the season, the Colts coaxed Philip Rivers out of retirement, and they haven’t won a game since.
Despite uncertainty around the health of $114 Million man Alec Pierce, and a seemingly omnipresent trade request from Richardson, the Colts are feeling optimistic about the offense ...... that’s in large part because of Jones. Whereas he split reps with Richardson through the second pre-season game last year, Jones has been the unquestioned QB-1 all camp this year.
Steichen watched every snap of Jones when he was in New York to build the offense around him. Now, Jones is displaying a greater mastery of what his head coach and play-caller is dialing up in Year 2.
“I think that it’s understanding the ins-and-outs of the system, especially when we’re on the ball and we’re going,” Steichen says of his quarterback. “To be able to get us into the right place, whether we have a kill on them or not. A lot of those conversations take place, and going into year 2, just the verbiage of spitting it out quickly. He’s got a great handle on it right now, so I’m really pleased with that.”
His confidence is back. Jones accepted injuries as a part of the game a long time ago, but said he still had a moment where he said to himself, “Dang, this is an awfully unlucky situation.” Emotionally, he’s back now, and mentally he’s moving faster this summer.
But physically ??? well …...
Jones has always been one of the fastest quarterbacks in the NFL. During an (infamous) 80-yard run against the Eagles in 2020, he hit a max speed of 21.23 MPH, at the time the fastest time logged by a QB in nearly 3 seasons.
Achilles injuries are historically difficult to return from, and there aren’t many examples of top-tier quarterbacks who suffer them and return to form. Not known for his footspeed, Kirk Cousins registered 19.15 MPH a month before his Achilles tear in 2023. Though he started Week 1 the next season, he didn’t break 15 MPH on the field until Week 13. It wasn’t until the following year that he broke 17 MPH.
The Colts’ QB room has an argument as the fastest in the league. Richardson nearly broke the combine when he ran the 40 in 4.43 seconds at 244 pounds. Leonard hit 20.23 MPH in the final pre-season game last year.
Leonard has been giving his groomsman grief because he hasn’t reached 20 MPH on the GPS post-surgery. The best that Jones has done so far ...... 19.7 MPH, he says.
“I got to get my numbers back up,” Jones says, “and I will.”
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