You covered it incorrectly.
He was never active for a game. That's different. The point is that he could have been activated for a game and never was. Players on the practice squad and IR are not on the active roster. As are players that are PUP, etc. He didn't *have* to be on the active roster.
He did practice full speed during the second half of the season. Yet he still wasn't activated, even when (as I've already said) we had injuries to other recievers and were short handed at the position.
The surgery he had was minor surgery. It's something that only takes about a month to fully recover from. It would have been a simple thing to put the guy on IR but they never did.
We'll see what he does this year, but mostly people are making excuses for him and trying to explain away the fact that when he was healthy enough to play, Payton didn't feel he was good enough to even dress for a game.