The Green Bay Packers will be without tight end Jermichael Finley on Sunday, but it looks like their two biggest injured stars have a shot at playing.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who suffered a concussion on the final play of the game after a helmet-to-helmet hit, will miss some practice time this week, but hasn’t been ruled out for Sunday.
Rodgers will have to pass a series of tests in order to be cleared, but both coach Mike McCarthy and backup Matt Flynn expressed optimism Rodgers would be able to play.
On the defensive side of the ball, linebacker Clay Matthews suffered a hamstring injury. Matthews missed four weeks of training camp with a similar injury, but this injury doesn’t appear nearly as severe and there’s a chance Matthews could be back in action this week.
The Packers also got some good news on linebacker Brandon Chillar, who has missed two weeks with a shoulder injury. Chillar will test his shoulder in practice this week and if it responds well, could be available on Sunday.
In other injury news, the Packers will be without tight end Donald Lee and safety Derrick Martin for some time. Lee injured his chest on the second play of the Redskins game, but returned to score a touchdown. Martin injured his knee. Both players are expected to be out several weeks.
With both Lee and Finley out of the tight end mix, the Packers are extremely young at the position, with rookie Andrew Quarless and Tom Crabtree, who is in his first year on the Packers’ active roster.
With Martin out, Jarrett Bush will receive more reps at strong safety. Charlie Peprah started against the Redskins, but gave up two big plays.
Finally, defensive end Ryan Pickett suffered an ankle sprain, but is still being evaluated.
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The packers were talked about one of the deepest teams in the nfl so are depth is really going to need to show up in the next couple of weeks. Being at 3-2 isn’t ideal for the packers but there in the same boat as a lot of elite teams in the NFC so we need to suck it, lick our wounds and gut some gutsy wins in the next couple of weeks. Our play head to head against the Vikings and the Bears will determine our fate. Also i believe a later bye in week 10 will work in our favor as Brett Favre and the Vikings our going to have to play a lot of football for 12+ weeks in a row.
Other than perhaps changing your phrasing from “suck it” to “suck it up,” I pretty much agree. Other than Atlanta the NFC is looking kind of flawed so far.
Actually, I thought Peprah played pretty well. His tackling was fine, and he did a good job on the TE and RBs, which was our weakness against D-troi. Yes, he got burned on two deep plays, but it was his first start. More than needing Peprah to play solid, we need Collins to start making some plays. Where is he? The Packers are undefeated right now if Collins just catches the INTs thrown to him.
Having Finley out could be a blessing for our offense. That might seem odd to say, but it seems like A-Rodge was relying on him too much on 3rd down. We were doing what we needed to do early on with getting Jennings and Jones involved. We seemed to get away from that. And, RUN THE FOOTBALL! With Crabtree out there, we have our best blocking TE in the game.
Tough call on whether A-Rodge should play, it isn’t like we can afford to lose many more games, but the Viking game is the more important game. Plus, getting Flynn some live action and relying more on the running game could be good moves in the long run.
Regardless, I’m sure if A-Rodge has any say in it, he will be playing.
Matthews could probably sit and we should be alright against the Dolphins. It did seem like Jones picked him game up a little bit once Matthews was out. Maybe if we expect more from him, he will give us more.
It all just depends on whether playing will endanger these guys for next week or not.
I couldn’t agree more about the running game. It should never help your team to lose a playmaker like Finley, but in this case it may force the stubborn MM to give the running game a shot. I am sick of hearing analysts say the Packers can’t run the ball. We don’t know if they can, we haven’t been trying.
70 run might of sounded that horn. Just sayin
*yard*