I pretty much led the Armstead bandwagon last year, and I still have high hopes for him. But I'm waiting to see how he comes back before passing judgment.
The term "soft tissue infection" is very unrevealing. It can be anything from a superficial cellulitis to a life-threatening situation that drives patients into septic shock and multiple organ failure. I've taken care of hundreds of these patients, in all ranges. We don't know much about the specifics of Armstead's situation, but we do know the following:
1. We know he had one surgery. Surgeries are done to debride (remove) infected or dead tissue and decrease the burden of infection so that it can be treated with antibiotics. Bacteria love to hide out in tissue spaces, and once they get a foothold, they are very hard to eradicate.
2. Only one surgery was reported. It is commonplace with more significant infections to have to do serial debridements, so probably Armstead's infection wasn't horrible compared to what it could have been.
3. IIRC, Armstead left the hospital within a week of his surgery, and it was never reported that he required intensive care unit level of care. This again suggests a lesser level of infection. More severe infections place a tremendous burden on the body, and usually mandate critical care stays.
4. We know that Armstead was attending team meetings and seen at the facility within a month or so of his surgery, and looked relatively normal. Trust me, if he had had the more severe class of soft tissue infection, there never would have been a thought of his playing football this year, if ever again.
Some of this is inference, but from medical knowledge and what has been reported, I believe that Armstead had a significant but not massive soft tissue infection, without any septic shock or organ dysfunction. We don't know the location of his infection.
I'm guessing that the Pats chose to be cautious about rushing him back this year, but just the fact that they were monitoring it day-to-day before the deadline is encouraging. I'm hopeful that he will come back and be what I hoped he would be - a hybrid DT/DE who can be a significant part of both rotations - but after this kind of infection I'm not counting on anything until I see him get on the field and get a sense of how he looks.
