Take it from someone who's gone through what he has (the herniated disc). He won't play again this year. If he does ,they are jeopardizing his future health. He's doing physical therapy (PT), which is the first step in treatment, right now.That will probably make it better, but he won't be fixed. At some point, they'll have to sit down and make a call on it. The right thing to do is to have surgery and have the herniation repaired and/or discs fused to fix it, which would require 6-8 weeks of rehab.The alternative is to address it with PT to where the pain is gone and the muscles around the neck, back, and chest stabilize his spine as much as possible. Even this is likely to take 4-6 weeks from the time of PT beginning. So best case at this point you are looking at the start of November.Note - you'd think he'd already be strong in all these areas being the athlete he is, but they can really dial in on areas depending on where the herniation is. Once they reach a certain point, he can try to return and they can manage for pain, but one good hit and he's probably out of commission again.And the overall thing is coming back puts him at further risk of even more damage. If I were in his shoes, I'd have surgery. He can really mess up his quality of life by trying to come back too soon in a sport like football. Particularly with the drum the player's union is beating these days over player injuries, long term care, etc.But I'm not in his shoes, he may want to play and say the hell with the risks. More power to him if he does, but I hope he realizes the consequences of his decision prior to doing so. My suspicion is that with as well as they are playing, he will get put on Injured Reserve. October 31 is their bye, I'd expect a decision on his return (or being played on IR) to come that following week. Full disclaimer: I had Kiwanuka on my roster in my IDP league, and just dropped him for Hali from KC.