La’el Collins and Alex Cappa give injury updates

Cincinnati Bengals right tackle La’el Collins and right guard Alex Cappa recently gave positive updates Monday when speaking to reporters about their recoveries from injuries sustained last season.

Collins tore his ACL in the Bengals’ Week 16 Christmas Eve victory over the New England Patriots in Foxborough and underwent surgery in January.

“I just know that each and every day I wake up, I feel stronger, and I’m doing something that I wasn’t doing the day before,” Collins stated. “At the end of my workout last week, I was able to take some pass sets. That felt good.”

While he started 15 games for the AFC North champion Bengals last year, Collins, a former Dallas Cowboy, played through multiple injuries.

Despite the offseason surgery, Collins believes he’s in a great spot health-wise.

“This is probably the best I’ve felt,” Collins said. “Probably the first offseason I’ve felt as good as I really feel, just as a whole. I did a few checkups on a few things, and everything looks better than it did before. I’m super excited to go into this season knowing how I feel as a whole.

Collins admitted that he wasn’t healthy going into last season. He missed most of training camp and the preseason with a back injury.

“I didn’t go into the season healthy at all. I just played through it. For me, that’s why I say right now, with the rehab and everything, I know I’m going to go into this season a whole lot healthier than I was last year. I think it’s going to be night and day.”

As for Cappa, his ankle injury suffered in the regular-season finale knocked him out of the Bengals’ three playoff games. He has since fully recovered and is very healthy as offseason workouts begin.

“It’s as healthy as I’ve ever been,” Cappa told Bengals.com. “Say that.”

The former Buccaneer started every regular-season game in his first year with Cincinnati while earning a 67.6 PFF grade, the highest of any Bengals starting offensive lineman last year.