FOXBOROUGH – On Wednesday morning, head coach Mike Vrabel told reporters that he expected Christain Gonzalez to do some things at Wednesday’s practice.

Moments later in the locker room, Gonzalez had a throng of reporters surrounding his locker, which was another indicator that No. 0 would be taking the field.

About a half hour after that, Gonzalez was in fact back out on the field with his teammates, practicing for the first time since getting a hamstring injury in training camp on July 28. While it’s still fairly unlikely Gonzalez will go against the Steelers on Sunday, the fact he’s back on the field is a good sign for everyone involved.

“Excited to be back out there,” said Gonzalez. “I love football. This is what I do. It’s been very challenging to be out for so long. But, I’m focused on here and now, not really too worried about the injury, not really going to answer no questions on that. We’re focused on the Steelers.”

The biggest issue surrounding the Gonzalez situation since he was hurt the first day of padded practices in camp is the uncertainty around it. As the team’s most important defensive player – or maybe second behind Milton Williams – everyone wants to see Gonzo take the field, including the team. But, there’s also a carefulness factor that comes into play when trying to get a player back from a soft tissue injury that could linger. There’s a fine line between pushing a guy to get back out there for his teammates and making sure he’s right before that.

Would you rather have him in Week 3 and then out again by Week 5 for the year?

Vrabel touched on that Wednesday morning too.

“I’m trying to just get them back as soon as they can get back and make sure that they’re staying engaged, and then we have to decide how long that’s going to be,” he said. “Is there short-term IR? All these different things that come into it, but everybody wants to blame if it’s not in some window that the doctor on Twitter suggests or recommends. Again, having had numerous injuries, they all recover differently. We’ve had players that have recovered differently, and it’s like, “Well, why did one injury take this long, and is it the player not working hard to come back? Is it the trainer’s fault? Is it this person’s fault?” I’ve said this, the injury rate in a professional football league is 100%. If you play this game long enough, you are guaranteed to get injured.

“I don’t think you can avoid that. I think it’s just how you handle it and kind of go from there.”

Gonzalez did touch on the process he’s gone through to get back, though.

“It’s been hard, it’s been tough, but it’s part of football,” he said. “Everything in football is tough. It’s going to test you physically, it’s going to test you mentally. So, I mean, it’s just a part of it.”

The first big hurdle has now been cleared. He’s practicing. How Gonzalez’s hamstring responds to the first day of work will be the next step. Remember, he hasn’t even been hit yet, given that he missed all of the padded sessions in camp.

This is just Step 1, but it’s a pretty damn big first step if this defense is going to be as good as everyone thought it could be heading into 2025.

From what he’s seen so far, Gonzalez believes this unit can in fact be elite, even if there are some doubters after last week’s performance in Miami.

“It’s been on display. These first two weeks, flying around, making plays. Got a lot to fix, but there’s so much where we can grow. It’ll be fun. I’m excited,” he added.