He’s coming back - next season

Just get him back for AFC championship game

AKA the Buffalo matchup...

man that would be huge

Jaylen at 80% of what he was just allows us to be a lot different on defense, can put Trent back on Shakir if we want

The reports by Jeremy Fowler after he got injured were "he has a shot to be back for a playoff run". Google says his injury usually takes up to three months to recover from. That would mean he could realistically return around mid to late January. If his rehab is ahead of schedule like Hollywood's is (original reports said he'd miss the entire regular season) then he might have a small chance of making it back for the game at Denver.

Bottom line is...

1. His latest pictures on IG show him wearing normal shoes (no injury boot) and walking around.

2. When Daniel Harms on twitter said to someone "Watson is out for the year", Jaylen replied to him and said "Who said that?".

3. Now out of the blue he's saying "never count me out"

So the pics provide physical proof that his injury has healed to the point that he's walking around fine and wearing normal shoes. His response to Daniel confirms what the original reports stated about him having a chance to return for the playoffs. And his latest hint suggests rehab is on schedule. We just have to wait and see now. The fact that KC never made a move to replace him makes me think they expect him back tbh.

Now if Williams goes on a good run of games and we do get Watson back, then our secondary could be in a good place come playoff time. We'll see.

I've been sayin' it for awhile, folks...

I've always thought Jaylen was gonna make it back for the post-season...

If Rodgers can come back from an Achilles tear in 10 weeks then nothing else surprises me

Buffalo won’t beat us at full strength.

Ain’t no way

Do we have anything other than hopes and prayers that Watson will be back?

I'm using Cook as my metric.

By many accounts, Cook was close but not quite in his return from his ankle issue last season and he went down in week 13. So by the SB that would've been about 10 weeks out.

Watson went down in week 5.

And yes, Watson broke his ankle, but in the case of a serious ankle injury like this, it ISN'T the bone that's the problem - it's the ligaments. And Cook had a tight-rope procedure in his ankle last season which is about as serious as it gets apart from a full replacement.

We have no indication that Watson had anything replaced so it's most likely that, as part of the broken ankle, he also had a tight-rope procedure done. And his injury came 8 weeks prior to Cooks. Given a similar recover timeline from the tight-rope and ligament damage (presuming that the break will be healed well before that), we're looking at about a 10-12 week recovery time.

At his age, with the training staff and facilities he has available to him, 12 weeks is a reasonable expectation on a tight rope procedure.

I just don't see any reason at all to write him off unless there's a setback. Without a setback, that level of injury is absolutely one he can recover from by the post-season.

Pacheco + Omenihu + Humphries + Watson + Hollywood for the stretch run is so HUGE. It would shore up all our weaknesses.

I stand where I did before. I truly hope Veach works out a nice deal to extend Watson at a fair but workable price.

He’s the most valuable player not named Trent McDuffie from the 2022 draft class.

What a ****ing 7th round that was, huh?

Even Johnson is a good value there. He’s been asked to do too much, but a guy who sticks on the roster and can play STs is still a good pick that late.

But Pacheco and Watson, man. Just incredible picks.

But he didn’t come back though.

Well he was cleared to come back.

Pretty remarkable

All this shows is we are going to have to invest higher draft picks into the CB position.