Dr. Blue's Health of the Franchise: Charlie Johnson

Four weeks ago, Colts Nation got the bad news that Charlie Johnson had injured his foot in a Training Camp practice.  Neither at that time, nor at any time since, have we learned what the nature of that injury was.

It has left people like me to speculate - ankle sprain? broken toe? Lisfranc? really bad athlete's foot?

Well this evening, while most of us were paying attention to the scrubs battle it out against the Bengals, reader coltus quietly posted this FanShot, which links to a story ostensibly only on Jeff Saturday's return.  But a sentence at the end of the short story gives us renewed hope:

Colts coach Jim Caldwell also said left tackle Charlie Johnson(notes) (foot) is making progress and could return to practice next week and play in Week 1.

If CJ can indeed return to practice next week, then this is (obviously) fantastic news - it means that the injury likely wasn't as severe as a fracture, and could have been as "innocuous" as a medium sprain.  All I hope is that they're being cautious and not rushing him back on the field... an intra-division game is important, but we need CJ for the long haul.