DeForest Buckner Trying To Come Back From Neck Surgery
- Buckner missed 12 games in the last 2 seasons due to a neck injury requiring surgery
- He faces a strenuous rehab to regain strength and return to the field for his 12th NFL season
- Buckner acknowledges needing to adjust his game to adapt to the physical changes from the injury
DeForest Buckner Trying To Come Back From Neck Surgery
INDIANAPOLIS – A 6-7, 295-pound NFL defensive lineman unable to pick up his preschool aged boys?
It’s pretty hard to believe.
But that was reality for DeForest Buckner earlier this year as he began a strenuous rehab from neck surgery.
As a disc began to push on a nerve, Buckner decided to have a surgery you don’t hear too many NFL-ers have, and also come back to play at a high level, especially in the trenches.
That’s what the goal is for the 32-year-old Buckner as he readies for his 11th NFL season.
Buckner is coming off of playing 10 games last season, 12 the year prior. Buckner missed 12 games in the last two years. In Buckner’s first 8 seasons in the NFL, he missed a total of 2 games.
This is rare for Buckner.
And it’s why the off-season conversation had to happen about whether or not Buckner would be playing a 12th season.
“When things like that (happen), obviously I find myself with some deep, dark thoughts about what am I’m going to do,” Buckner explained this spring. “Talk with the people closest to me and talking thought all those emotions.
“I’m in a good space and obviously I want to be out there this year and going to do whatever it takes to be out there Week 1.”
Any possible spring on-field activity for Buckner was ruled out pretty quickly this offseason.
“Shooting for training camp” is how Buckner has labeled his plans to get back on the field with his teammates.
The 2026 season was like no other for Buckner’s usually indestructible career.
In suffering a neck injury that sent him down to Panama for medical help, Buckner missed the most games of any NFL season he’s played.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the Buckner injury against Pittsburgh started a stretch of the Colts winning 1 game out of their final 9. Buckner played in just 1 game the rest of the season.
Buckner says it got to the point where surgery on his neck became the “only option.”
“I can only go as far as my body tells me,” Buckner now says.
As Year 12 beckons for the former top-10 pick, he admits that these new physical ailments have led to the need to alter his game a little bit.
“Technique wise, I’m going to have to change some things here and there,” the big man says.
For years, Buckner was routinely labeled as an ‘alien’ in describing his physical stature/what he brought to the defensive tackle position.
A guy carrying nearly 300 pounds of weight looked like an NBA forward, yet had enough power and speed to be a 3-down defensive tackle.
Has Father Time finally caught up to Buckner?
The clock that inevitably ticks on every football career used to be pretty slow moving for No. 99.
This buildup to the 12th season for Buckner has certainly not been the smoothest path.
But it would do wonders for the Colts if Buckner can get back to being one of the more unique defensive tackles in all of football.
