According to head coach Gary Kubiak, Ed Reed could play Monday night at San Diego. The five-time All-Pro safety has steadily increased his participation in practice each day this week.
"He practiced the entire practice today," Kubiak said Friday. "He took more reps than he did yesterday. There was improvement once again, so I think there's a shot. I think we'll see how he comes out of today's work. He kept his pad son the whole practice, since he's behind the other guys. There was obviously some improvement."
Reed spoke with the media on Friday for the first time since returning to practice. Because of his limited practice this offseason due to hip surgery, Reed's status for the season opener will be a game-time decision.
"Kind of 50-50 right now, honestly," Reed said. "I couldn't say if I'm going to play or not going to play. If Coach (Gary Kubiak) says it's up to me and it's up to me to some degree and it's up to him too and how he feels about the team as a whole."
Though he feels ahead of schedule in his recovery, Reed is still dealing with the aftereffects of injections which help speed up the healing process.
"Those injections, it takes like two weeks to kick in," Reed said. "Two weeks would be Monday, on Monday night. I still kind of feel the injections, the needles. The needles put me to sleep. The needles are this long (gestures to hands) and I had four of them all in the same spot. That's different than having one shot, like I had last time. It's a little different feeling for me. It caused a little bit more scar tissue, a little bit more trauma. It kind of slowed me down a little bit as far as the workouts. Once you get the blood flowing a little bit and everything, I'm starting to feel a lot of better. You can see that I kind of stepped back you could say."
Kubiak is pleased with the safety's recovery.
"Yeah and he did some one-on-one stuff and things he hasn't been doing," Kubiak said. "He got involved in some team periods. Yeah, I think from where we've been and where we're at right now, it's just exciting to see because it's coming along quick."
