Ryan Fitzpatrick missed his first scheduled start last Sunday in Atlanta, but it's unlikely he'll miss the season finale. After practicing with the first team offense Wednesday he stands a strong chance of being back under center Sunday against Indianapolis.
"I felt good," said Fitzpatrick after Wednesday's practice. "The last two days my ankle has really responded well to treatment and just working through it during practice, there's still pain there obviously, but it felt good and hopefully it'll continue to feel good throughout the week."
"He did take most of the reps," said interim head coach Perry Fewell. "It was good to have him back out there. He looked pretty good."
Fitzpatrick did not quite do everything as the quarterback did not want to push the ankle too hard, knowing how it feels Thursday will be even more important than the work he put in Wednesday.
"It was going to be a little bit lighter because I didn't want to get everything thrown on top of me," he said. "But it felt good out there and hopefully I'll come back (Thursday) and it'll still feel good."
"I said to him in practice, that (Thursday) is going to be the real day because you got on it and moved around, you did a lot of things, you took all of individual, so we'll see how sore he is (Thursday)."
Fitzpatrick was close to playing last week at Atlanta when he was a game time decision, but a half hour workout on the field prior to the game against the Falcons didn't go as well as hoped.
"Unfortunately I think that we just ran out of time in terms of being ready for (last) Sunday," he said.
The problem was his ankle could not hold up on rollouts and stepping up in the pocket. When he has to plant and turn or drive his body forward it puts a lot of torque on his ankle and foot. But he'll need to be able to do it this week with two Pro Bowl defensive ends in Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis coming at him.
"That's something that throughout the week I'm going to need to test out because that was something throughout the workouts (last) Sunday that wasn't going well. The more comfortable I get this week, the more we'll push it and I'll try to do those things. But that will be something that we'll continue to test throughout the week."
Provided he can Fitzpatrick will get the start. As much as some might want to see Brian Brohm play again, Fewell wants a quarterback that knows the offense inside and out.
"Brian did take some reps and got some work," said Fewell. "But I may lean to Ryan because he gives us the best opportunity I think to win this football game."
