Colts K Matt Gay 'ahead of schedule' after hernia, might kick against Packers

INDIANAPOLIS — Colts kicker Matt Gay came close to making a remarkable recovery from hernia surgery to kick in Sunday’s season opener against the Texans.

Gay underwent surgery to repair a hernia less than two weeks before the opener and bounced back quickly enough that Indianapolis did not officially rule him out until the team’s inactives were released 90 minutes before the start of the season.

“He’s ahead of schedule,” Indianapolis special teams coordinator Brian Mason said. “It was pretty remarkable … that he was able to kick last week and become a game-day decision.”

Undrafted rookie Spencer Shrader kicked in Gay’s place. The Colts did not attempt a field goal, but Shrader made three extra points and blasted every one of his kickoffs into the end zone for a touchback.

Gay will kick again this week in the hope that he can return to the lineup this week against Green Bay.

“We really just need to see that he can handle a full load,” Mason said. “It’s a lot of kicking that he’d have to do on game day. Could he handle all of that, being close to 100%, and not have that be a setback that would lead to him being out any further?”

A return to action in less than three weeks would be considerably ahead of schedule.

Indianapolis does not want to put Gay back in the lineup, only to exacerbate the injury and force him back out of the lineup for an extended period of time.

“We don’t want to have any issues like that,” Mason said. “We’ll make a decision by the end of the week, once we see how he handles all of that.”

Indianapolis is trying to weigh a cautious approach to Gay’s injury against the benefits the Colts believe they get from having him in the lineup. Shrader remains an unproven rookie, and Indianapolis has repeatedly said there are no lingering concerns with Gay’s ability after he missed three of his four field-goal attempts in the preseason.

In addition, Gay handles kickoff duties for the Colts, an area of the game that was directly affected by Gay’s absence on Sunday. Indianapolis might have tried to pin the Texans behind the 30-yard line in the NFL’s new dynamic kickoff if Gay had been available; Shrader instead blasted all five kickoffs through the end zone.

“We had a rookie kicker this week,” Mason said. “That changed some of the game plan. … It was his first NFL game. We wanted to keep things simple for him. We weren’t going to have a variety of kicks and placements and different things. We were just, keep it simple, Spencer’s going to kick it as far as he can so he doesn’t have a bunch of other things on his plate.”

Gay’s status, on the other hand, is fairly complicated.

But his ability might lead to the Colts making different decisions if he’s available on Sunday in Green Bay.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts K Matt Gay 'ahead of schedule' after hernia, might kick against Packers