Las Vegas Raiders

Del Rio on Mario Edwards Jr.: "We should get him on the field this week."

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

Oakland Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio said defensive end Mario Edwards Jr. should be making his season debut the next time the team takes the field.

The Mario Edwards Jr. story needs no introduction at this point. You know the drill…he’s missed the entire season to this point, and we’ve gone weeks with the same updates.

But now, finally, we might have some real news. According to Jack Del Rio, Edwards Jr. “should” be making him season debut in Oakland’s next game, against the San Diego Chargers.

“We’ll get another look at him this week and see how quick he gets up to speed and conditioning and all of that,” Del Rio said. “He stayed behind and conditioned through the weekend. We should get him on the field this week.”

Del Rio could just be being optimistic here, and that’s fine. The only thing we can really say at this point is we’ll believe Mario is back when he is actually out on the field, and when that happens, he will be a big help to the front seven, and the defense as a whole.

If Edwards indeed does return for the December 18 game against the Chargers, Ian Rapoport deserves some credit.

#Raiders are welcoming back to practice former 2nd round pick Mario Edwards, per @coachdelrio. They think he can play Dec. 18 vs. #Chargers

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 6, 2016