Raiders left tackle Jared Veldheer has been out the entire season to this point following a surgery he had during the preseason on his injured triceps muscle. He was placed on partial season injured reserve which made him eligible to return as of this week.

Veldheer didn't return to practice this week. Instead he was in Los Angeles getting a diagnosis on how his triceps is healing up. The diagnosis came out positive that things are healing up as expected.

"We're at a point now where we can kind of ramp up the rehab a little bit," said Allen. "I still think he's a little bit away, but indications that he's on schedule and we're going to be able to ramp up the rehab and hopefully we'll have him out there sooner rather than later. But he's on schedule for his return."

That schedule was to be three months from the time he had the surgery which occurred on August 16th. That puts his return as week 11 when the Raiders travel to Houston to play the Texans.

The expectation was never to have him back the moment his partial season injured reserve designation was up. The optimistic outlook was always more that he would return for week 10 against the Giants. That is not out of the question but seems rather unlikely even if he were to return to practice in the days leading up to that game.

From the looks of it the Raiders can expect to have their standout left tackle back in the starting lineup for their final seven games of the season. Which is great news considering if the diagnosis this week had showed he wasn't on schedule, the fear would be he was lost for the season.

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