Colts’ Hugh Thornton now described as week-to-week with ankle injury

Though Hugh Thornton entered training camp as one of the favorites to win the right guard competition and carve out a legitimate role this year, his camp went about as poorly as possible as he couldn’t stay on the field.

He practiced for the first few days of camp, but after that began to sit out. At first, it seemed like the Colts were just being cautious with him, as Thornton missed the entire offseason program due to an ankle injury. But eventually, as Thornton kept missing time and wound up in a boot, it began to raise more questions. Last Thursday, Colts head coach Chuck Pagano said that Thornton suffered a setback with his ankle injury, and today Pagano said that the timeline for Thornton is week-to-week.

Because of that, it’s perfectly fair to wonder whether we’ve already seen the last of Hugh Thornton in a Colts uniform. With the Colts, week-to-week always means that the player will miss time, and it’s often a significant amount of time at that. With only three weeks remaining in the preseason, it’s very much up in the air whether Thornton will be able to return for any of them. In that case, the Colts would have to make a decision on a guy who was already losing his grip on the starting spot, didn’t play in the preseason and missed most of OTAs and camp, hasn’t played great for the Colts over the past few years, and who plays only one position. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why Thornton might be cut, and the week-to-week designation is just another in a long line of indications that his time with Indianapolis could be drawing to a close. It stinks for him to not be able to get on the field and compete, but it’s an unfortunate reality of the NFL. Right now, it seems we’re just waiting for when the announcement will come about the Colts releasing Thornton, not if it will come.