With the Colts Training Camp now open, their roster is now limited to 80 active players. Apparently among those 80 is 3rd round pick Kevin Thomas. Thomas suffered a knee injury in May that reportedly would keep him from playing at all this season. Thomas was signed Saturday, but there is no indication of him having been placed on IR (which would keep him from counting against the Colts 80 man roster limit) and as far as I can tell, no reports of him being on the Active PUP list (which would keep him from counting against the eventual 53 man in-season roster limit, with him being able to return to the roster between weeks 6 and 10).
It seems as if the Colts are carrying a player widely expected to miss the entire season on the limited roster, at the cost of a player like Tom Santi, who was waived/injured today. By my (double-checked) count, Colts.com currently lists 80 players on the Colts active roster, with Kevin Thomas among the active and rookie kicker Brett Swenson on IR.
As is common with the tight-lipped Colts organization there's been no indication of the type or severity of the knee injury (beyond most reports concluding surgery and a lost season were in Thomas' future). Was his injury really season ending? Being optimistic, the PUP with hopes of a mid to late-season return was about the most you could expect given the reports, but as yet, there's no news on any Colts being on the PUP list (and players can't be placed on the PUP if they were active at the start of camp).
Is Kevin Thomas on the PUP list? If he isn't, either the Colts are currently sacrificing a healthy body in camp to carry a player they expect to place on IR, or Kevin Thomas' rookie season isn't so lost after all.
The answer that makes the most sense to me is that he is on Active-PUP, because I seriously doubt both that the Colts wouldn't have IR'ed him already if that was inevitable, and that if he is fully active he wasn't seen running around by any of the 3,000 people at Colts TC today. This would be great news for a CB corps that still doesn't run as deep as you'd like.