Jerry Jacobs updates his injury status: ‘I’ll be back sooner than you think’

One big storyline of the 2022 Detroit Lions will be the return from injury for a lot of different players. Both Jeff Okudah and Romeo Okwara suffered serious Achilles injuries last season. Center Frank Ragnow had a serious turf toe that cost him the final three months of the season. Even two Lions draft picks this year—Jameson Williams and James Mitchell—are in the midst of recovering from torn ACLs suffered in the past 10 months.

We’ve got a lot of updates for many of these injuries, including Jeff Okudah’s consistent logging of his progress on social media, Ragnow and Mitchell essentially saying they’re near 100 percent right now, and Williams saying he “should” be ready by training camp.

One player we have not gotten such updates from is Lions cornerback Jerry Jacobs, who suffered a torn ACL in the team’s Week 14 game against the Denver Broncos. It’s only been five months since Jacobs suffered the injury, but he provided a semi-cryptic update via Twitter on Tuesday morning.

“My setback was a blessings [sic], I overcame what was sent to destroy me!!!” Jacobs said. “I’ll be back sooner than you think, stronger than ever!!!”

That doesn’t give us a direct timeline of when to expect Jacobs back in the fold, but there are some hints. An ACL tear can take anywhere between six and 12 months to recover from, and at the time of the injury, head coach Dan Campbell gave an estimate right in the middle.

“That’s probably a nine-month injury, somewhere in there,” Campbell said. “But the good news is it’s repairable, he’ll work at it, he’ll come back, and he’ll be better than he was.”

Nine months would put Jacobs’ injury return right around the start of the 2022 NFL regular season. If that’s the case, the Lions may consider placing Jacobs on Physically Unable to Perform list prior to training camp and keep him there through the first six games of the season.

However, if he’s ahead of schedule, there’s certainly a chance Jacobs could make it in time for training camp. If Williams, who suffered his torn ACL a month later than Jacobs, can recover in time for August practices, it’s certainly possible Jacobs could, too.

UPDATE: Jacobs also posted this photo to his Instagram page—from the Lions’ May 10 offseason workout photo gallery—showing that he is at offseason workouts and at least walking out on the field.