Holmes said his objective is “to not have any setbacks by moving too fast. The season doesn’t start until September. Definitely have to take our time and I’ll be ready to go when the bell rings.”

The Jets open in 50 days against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Darrelle Revis. Holmes wouldn’t guarantee he’ll be there, insisting he’s in a day-to-day mode. When pressed on his availability for Week 1, he said, “Once the season gets ready to start, hopefully I’ll be ready to roll.”

It won’t be easy.

Holmes, still not running and cutting at full speed, is expected to begin training camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list. He’s been running at least three days a week, but he’s limited to a gravity-assisted treadmill — in other words, no full weight-bearing activity.

“I don’t have a target date,” Holmes said in blistering heat at a charity flag-football event on Roosevelt Island. “I’m just stating the facts that the season starts soon and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize myself for being ready for the season.”

Holmes suffered a LisFranc injury last October — a Grade 4 injury, the most severe kind. He underwent two surgeries, the latter in February to remove screws that were inserted in the initial operation.

He acknowledged its severity, saying “it’s really difficult to learn how to walk again. You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. To lose a ligament and have separation in your joints and have screws placed in there, it takes a while to get back into the swing of things.”

Holmes said LisFranc injuries have been known to “shut down careers.” But he said he never thought his career was in jeopardy. Holmes, wearing a compression sleeve on his lower left leg, seemed to be walking gingerly as he mingled with fans Saturday on an artificial-turf field.

“It’s been getting better,” he said. “We’ve been making great progress every day. That’s all the coaches and trainers are looking for — continue to make great progress and not have any setbacks.”

The Jets are counting on Holmes because he’s their top playmaker, but they’re prepared for the likelihood that he will miss time in camp. That will pose a challenge because they’re installing a new system. It also could hurt his chemistry with rookie Geno Smith — if he wins the starting job.

Holmes, who has publicly backed Mark Sanchez in the past, stayed away from any bold comments on the anticipated quarterback competition. Asked if he’d be surprised if Smith wins the job, Holmes replied, “If Rex (Ryan) loves him, we have to love him.”

The post Santonio Holmes: Still no target date appeared first on IdealCapper.

Hamlin insisted he’ll again give Vickers the car at some point Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

But with a sly smile, Hamlin left the door open to run a full race in his return from a compressed fracture of a vertebra in his lower back. After missing four races, he was cleared Thursday to get back in the car this weekend and said doctors gave him permission to run the entire race.

He said his intention was to “take a knee” after the start by getting out of the car during a caution and allowing Vickers to finish the race. That slightly contradicted crew chief Darian Grubb, who said earlier Friday they’d play race-day by ear and see how the race flows.

When asked about that after his practice stint, Hamlin stammered about his true plans.

“Ummm, yeah. I’d say there’s going to be a caution at some point and I’d like to get out and just ensure myself of one more week of healing,” Hamlin said.

So bet on Hamlin getting out of the car?

“Is there that bet in Vegas?” Hamlin asked.

He doesn’t particularly like Talladega, or restrictor-plate racing, for that matter. But he found himself tossing and turning Thursday night, unable to sleep because he was so anxious to get back in his firesuit, back into his race car and back onto the track.

“If it wasn’t for my crew chief, I would have ran it out of gas,” he said of his only run Friday. “I just wanted to feel speed again. We’re competitors and when you see the people on TV in other sports fighting through injuries to come back to the field or the court, we feel that same thing. We have alligator blood. I don’t know what to say. We’re a different breed. We’re willing to throw caution to the wind just to get back to what we are doing.”

His return drew mixed reactions in the garage.

Race car driving by nature is dangerous and every day on the job has its risks. Now Hamlin is coming back from a serious injury that not everyone would treat the same.

“This is how we make a living,” Clint Bowyer said. “You’ve got to put food on the table and we’re all in the same boat. We’re all given a wonderful opportunity to get paid doing what we love to do, so anytime a racer is OK to get back in the car, he’s going to do it whether he’s sore or whatever the case is. We’d do it even if it didn’t pay anything. It’s just the nature of the beast.”

Jeff Gordon, at 41 years old and the father of two young children, wasn’t sure what his approach would be.

“You have to take yourself out of that and understand what the dangers are, what the risks are and if you re-injure yourself, can that be life-threatening or something that ends your career,” he said. “I think for me, I’m later in my career and have a family and so an injury like what Denny went through, I don’t know. I might not come back from that just because, is it worth it?

“For Denny, I think it’s worth it for him to really take his time and do it right. What he’s doing this weekend, to me that makes sense. It’s Talladega, there’s ways to avoid those incidents,” Gordon said. “I’ll be interested to see if he gets out or stays in there. If I know Denny, he’s going to have a hard time getting out. Sounds like he is ready to go.”

Hamlin was supposed to get out of the car in his return race at Phoenix after knee surgery three years ago. But he stuck it out to prove something to his team because he was injured playing basketball and felt he owed it to his crew to fight through the pain.

“I felt like I had put my team in a very bad spot by getting hurt outside of racing,” he said. “I stayed in to tell them basically that I was sorry and I was going to do whatever I could for them. That hurt worse than what this does in the race car.”

There’s no pain this time around, he said, and the only discomfort is when he actually gets out of the car. To alleviate that, the Joe Gibbs Racing team has taken the option of using a roof hatch and Hamlin is using it to exit the car.

He practiced the driver exchange with Vickers on Friday and twice did it in just over a minute — fast enough to ensure the car would remain on the lead lap if they swapped under caution.

Hamlin now goes forward this week balancing risk versus reward and the challenge ahead. He’s currently 28th in the standings and needs to climb to 20th in the Sprint Cup standings to be eligible to claim one of two wild-card slots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

He’ll earn the points Sunday if he starts the race.

“We’re going to have to make a big, big run if we’re going to be part of the postseason,” he said. “Our Chase has to start right now. We have to perform each week like it’s a Chase race and do everything we can to get wins. If we don’t win, it doesn’t matter.”

But there is a risk, he admitted.

“I don’t know the exact science, and no one knows the exact percentages. That’s what makes this really, really hard,” he said. “But, as far as I’ve been told, I understand it would take such a significant hit that you probably would be injured from it even if you were 100 percent healthy. I’ve got to let the doctors speak for that a little bit more than me because I don’t know the risks exactly and neither do they. We’re just trying to buy myself another week obviously until Darlington, but the risk is so minimal that it’s almost not even there.”

The post Denny Hamlin turns 16 laps appeared first on IdealCapper.

Malkin has symptoms that include a severe headache and mild disorientation, the newspaper reported, citing multiple sources.

Malkin was injured in the third period of Friday’s game against the Panthers after getting nudged by Florida’s Erik Gudbranson. Malkin’s back hit the boards at full speed and his head snapped back upon impact.

Penguins coach Dan Bylsma ruled Malkin out for Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay. Bylsma declined to elaborate on the nature of what is being called an “upper body” injury but added that Malkin is not hospitalized.

Pittsburgh’s second-leading scorer, Malkin has registered 14 goals and 25 points in 22 games this season. The Russian center collected 50 goals and 109 points last season en route to winning the Hart Trophy.

The post Evgeni Malkin may be concussed appeared first on IdealCapper.

“He’s ready to go,” Harbaugh said. “He’s going to play in this game and he should be full speed.”

It’s uncertain how much Lewis — who has missed the last 10 games since suffering the injury on Oct. 14 — will play.

It’s possible that Sunday could be the final game of Lewis’ storied career. The two-time defensive player of the year and former Super Bowl MVP announced Wednesday that he is retiring after this season.

Sunday will also likely be Lewis’ final game in Baltimore even if the Ravens win because of their No. 4 seed entering the playoffs. He is also close to signing a multiyear contract with ESPN to join the network as an NFL analyst, according to an SI.com report.

Lewis, 37, returned to practice on Dec. 5. For him to be eligible for the playoffs, the Ravens added him to the active roster later in the month.

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