Joe Flacco is on the mend.
The Ravens veteran quarterback has made strong progress in his recovery from tearing his left ACL last year, and he's already running and throwing again just over four months after surgery.
"I do all that stuff," Flacco said Tuesday after the Ravens opened their offseason conditioning program. "I can do everything, pretty much. It's just a matter of how well I can do it – do I have a little limp here or there."
Flacco has been a mainstay at the Under Armour Performance Center this offseason, and he's seen consistent improvement over the last few months. Flacco said "over the past three weeks I've started to feel some big improvements," and he still expressed optimism about returning to the field for the start of training camp in late July.
"All I know is I want to be back for training camp and to be back for the season and be ready to go," Flacco said. "So I'm doing all I can to get to that point."
Running again is a good sign for the 31-year-old quarterback, even if it's not exactly full speed. Flacco is not at the point where he is running full-strength and then cutting on the knee, but he doesn't feel any hesitation during his workouts.
"I don't feel like I have to protect it," Flacco said. "I'm not a big brace wearer, but I wear it just so I don't hurt myself. There are things where I started out wearing it and I'm really not wearing for that anymore. I want to be as cautious as possible with all that stuff, but at the same time, no, I don't feel like I have any tentativeness when I go out there and I'm doing things, whether it's in the training room or on the field, jumping up on the boxes, lifting weights.
In terms of throwing, Flacco is easing back into it. The strong-armed quarterback has not needed to test out his arm strength over the last few months, but has tried out some light throwing.
"I've stood 15 yards apart and kind of thrown here and there," he said. "I haven't really been too concerned with it yet, but it's kind of getting into that time where I want to start doing it a little bit."
Throughout Flacco's recovery, he and the Ravens have held off on setting a firm date for his return to the field. He clearly hopes to be back for training camp to start building a rapport with some of his new targets like tight end Benjamin Watson and wide receiver Mike Wallace, and he has shown no setbacks at any point of his recovery.
"I feel good. I'm getting better and better," Flacco said. "I still feel improvement week-to-week. We've never really set a timeline out that says, 'I'm going to be back at this point.' But I think it's still going really, really well."
