Much to the surprise of no one around here, the Green Bay Packers will not be getting cornerback Sam Shields back on the field this week. Shields was ruled out of his sixth consecutive game because of lingering symptoms of a concussion, on Tuesday. Then the Packers followed that up by placing him on injured reserve.
That’s bad news for Shields, but it’s worse news for the Packers.
Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins are also sidelined at the moment. Both players have groin injuries and neither practiced on Tuesday. Randall played against Dallas last week only to leave after 18 snaps. Rollins didn’t play and the word on Monday was he won’t be playing this week either.
The likely scenario for the Packers is the one they ended up playing most of the Dallas game in. LaDarius Gunter starts on one side, Demetri Goodson starts on the other and Micah Hyde is your nickel back. Then the Packers will either use safety Morgan Burnett as their dime cornerback, a role he filled against Dallas, or they’ll actually play the other cornerback on the roster, rookie Josh Hawkins.
As for Shields, he said he hopes to return in eight weeks, which means the Packers would use their one return from injured reserve designation on their top corner.
Interestingly, this also solves the mystery of the Knile Davis roster spot. The Packers had to make a move after acquiring Davis from the Chiefs. We know they were loathe to release anyone currently on the active roster, so the Shields’ move eliminates that problem.
You only have to wonder if it should have been made sooner.