Margus Hunt plagued by back injury

Margus Hunt strolled the sidelines on the practice fields outside of Paul Brown Stadium Tuesday afternoon during the last Cincinnati Bengals offseason training activities open to the media, watching his teammates work on individual and team drills in his Bengals workout gear and baseball hat.

The third-year defensive end out of Southern Methodist has been at the team facilities for two weeks, but he has been held out of OTAs due to a re-aggravation of a pre-existing muscle injury in his back during workouts in April.

"It was just a bad decision on my part to start doing stuff that I haven't done in so long," he said. "You're in that kind of adrenaline rush with the guys, and you want to compete and everybody's in the zone, and one, slight, bad move and I mean … it's really frustrating."

He said he suffered the injury in the summer before his senior year at SMU in the fall of 2012, and it went out completely on the third play of the first game that year against Baylor.

But, after missing a week, he was able to rehabilitate it enough to not only finish his final college season, but post incredible workout numbers heading into the 2013 draft.

"Through the draft and combine process, everything, it was completely fine," Hunt said. "For two years it was completely fine, because we did the right stuff in the weight room, and it was all manageable. When we came back, I was lifting with the guys and doing stuff that I haven't been doing in so long and it just kind of gave out again."

Because of that, he feels confident he can get the injury back under control.

"I should be up for training camp," he said. "We're going day by day. I'm trying to be back as soon as possible and trying to do stuff as soon as possible. Training camp is definitely in the mix."

The Bengals selected Hunt in the second round in 2013, but he has missed 10 games in his first two years with the Bengals. He was affected last year by an injured ankle.

He said this offseason was spent self-evaluating, breaking down what he did right and wrong on film, identifying areas to improve in and trying to get his body back fully healthy.

After saying that, he half chuckled in resignation.

"But, eventually, it let me down."