Chao still feels fairly confident in a Turkey Day/early December return...
If I’m guessing, the reason why DJ is ‘not sure’ when he’ll come back is because the wrist is still casted. So until he’s out of the cast and the doc checks out the healing, no one can say for sure that DJ will be healthy enough to come back.
But I did think the comment about DJ said about coming back Thanksgiving to be ‘premature’ somewhat telling. I took the remark to be more along the lines of speculating any return date is ‘premature’. I didn’t take premature to mean that was too early a target. But - there is certainly room for interpretation.
One thing Chao said was this though.
Now, the ultimate decision on return to play is made jointly between the player, medical staff and team. And all parties need to sign off.
I think if Johnson is deemed healthy medically, he’s going to want to play...which means 2 of the 3 parties sign off. And a healthy player is a healthy player...the Cardinals would have to make a decision to keep a healthy player, eligible to return to the field, off it. Has there been a case where a team has done that?