Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas
Just got off the telephone with Carolina Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme and he revealed he's taken a very significant step in his recovery from Tommy John elbow surgery.
Delhomme said he threw a football Monday for the first time since his surgery. He also threw Tuesday and this morning. Well, it was sort of a football. Delhomme has started throwing a Nerf ball to trainer Ryan Vermillion.
The ground rules are pretty rigid because the Panthers want to be cautious with Delhomme's recovery.
So far, he'ss been limited to 20 passes each day at a distance of about 10 yards in the team's training room.
"It feels great, no pain at all," Delhomme said. "I'd like to do more than 20, but they're not going to let me win that battle. We'll keep doing this and, hopefully, go to a big ball out on the field in about a month or so."
That should be music to the ears of Carolina fans, who realized Delhomme's value more than ever after he went down in Week 3. The team struggled to a 7-9 record with David Carr, Vinny Testaverde and Matt Moore taking turns in Delhomme's place.
Today marks the 16-week anniversary of Delhomme's surgery. The team and the quarterback haven't set a hard target date for Delhomme's full return to activity, but there's optimism he'll be ready for training camp.
We'll have a full story on Delhomme's recovery as well as some updates on some other prominent players around the league who are coming back from major injuries in the next few days.
