Dontari Poe has become one of the very best nose tackles in the league for the Kansas City Chiefs and is an enormous part of their defense. Poe had surgery on his back a little more than a month ago and was expected to miss at least the first couple of weeks of the season. It is being reported now that there is a real possibility that Poe will make it back for game one of the season, according to Adam Teicher of ESPN.
Poe had a procedure done on July 15th called a microdisectomy which was done to remove a herniated disk from his back. Poe is reportedly extremely confident he will be back for the first game of the season but head coach Andy Reid isn't as sure.
"We'll see. Let's see how he does in this phase with the exercise part of it. So far, it's gone well, but let's see how that goes. That's kind of where the docs are at. He hasn't run or done that. So we'll see in that next phase where that goes. He's moving around. He hasn't had any setbacks, so I guess that's a positive," said Reid.
Reid also said that Poe is at least on schedule if not a little bit ahead of schedule with his recovery. Poe has yet to practice all during training camp and doesn't plan to this week. While Poe is recovering well from the surgery the 345 pound defensive lineman still needs to get in football shape in order to be able to play and that may be what holds him back in game one.
Poe is a fourth year player out of Memphis who just turned 25 years old. In each of the past two seasons Poe was named to the Pro Bowl and he was also named to the 2nd team All-NFL in 2013. Last season Poe finished with 38 tackles and six sacks.
In his first three seasons in the NFL, Poe has only missed one career game so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that he might be back for week one. It still seems more likely than not that Poe will miss the Chiefs week one game against the Houston Texans but the fact that it's even a possibility is a great sign for the Chiefs and makes it seem like he won't miss much regular season time if any at all.
