How far away is Andrew Luck from returning to the field? It’s anybody’s guess right now

Earlier today, the Carolina Panthers provided an update on quarterback Cam Newton’s progress in his recovery from shoulder surgery, saying that he will start throwing next week.

Meanwhile, the Indianapolis Colts have continued to provide no timetable regarding Andrew Luck’s return from shoulder surgery. While we still don’t know for sure when he’ll be back, reporters who cover the team think that it will still be a while.

It surely won’t be a surprise if Luck begins training camp on the PUP list and isn’t ready right away, as the Colts haven’t said whether Luck will be ready by training camp. Ultimately, there’s just a lot of unknowns right now surrounding Luck’s recovery timeline. Chuck Pagano said this past week that Luck is doing great and is still involved with the team in a number of ways even though he’s not working out on the field - but that doesn’t give us an indication of when he might start working out on the field.

The only thing we really have to go on is that Jim Irsay has said that Luck should be ready for the start of the regular season, so at this point it seems best to still assume that Luck should be back in time for week one. But like Chappell said, there is at least some reason for concern, if for no other reason than that there’s always some concern when the franchise quarterback is recovering from an injury. The lack of a timeline doesn’t help things, however, so we’re just in a wait and see mode.

Luck isn’t expected to practice at all in the offseason program, which concludes next week with the team’s mini-camp. After that, the players are off until training camp begins in late July, which will be the real test of how close Luck is. He wasn’t expected to practice this offseason all along, but if he’s not back by the start of camp then more questions will be raised.