It came with a price. Calvin’s shoulder got hurt. they have not said how badly yet, but it was wrapped up in bandages.
The Lions voted to decertify the union today.
Several sources are reporting that Aaron Rodgers suffered a concussion on Green Bay’s last offensive play (the one where Rodgers threw the pick). With the caution the League is now showing about concussions, that means Matt Flynn is likely to start against the Dolphins. Here’s the really worrisome thing for the Packers (as if that wasn’t bad enough). The Packers currently only have two QB’s on their roster. If Flynn goes down, they don’t have anybody else. Don’t be surprised to see them bring somebody in to practice as an emergency quarterback this week.
They also lost (amnong others) Jermichael Finley and Clay Matthews to hammies, though Matthews’ is reportedly minor. Injuries are kicking the shit out of Green Bay right now. Those concussions are unpredictable too. The League is being really careful with them now. Rodgers could miss more than one week.
The Redskins game counts here, and I’m guessing the loss to the Bears does as well. Congrats to the Lions for the huge victory. Really, the last two weeks have gone very well from a Vikings point of view. We’ve got a really tough test tonight on the road.
[tangent]
Incidentally, I had a pretty crazy sports weekend. My Dad is a huge Gamecocks fan and every year my wife and I attend one game with my parents. I picked the Alabama game this year and we got to witness the biggest win in that school’s history. Great atmosphere there.
Yesterday, my wife and I went to the Braves playoff game. We went from exuberance at the outset of the game to being ground down inning after inning by Jonathan Sanchez, from total elation at Hinske’s homer to devastation as Brooks Conrad simply choked on the simplest of plays.
Tonight’s the capper to this weekend and it will definitely tilt the scales one way or the other.
They actually have former Texas Tech QB Graham Harrell (who looked pretty good in some preseason work) on the practice squad. But, they don’t have anyone experienced on the bench, no.
As we learned after Dio posted this, Finley’s injury was actually a knee. Both he and Nick Barnett are having surgery this week, with the hope that they’ll be back at some point this season.
And, Donald Lee has a chest sprain, and may be out for a couple of weeks. Which means we’re down to a couple of rookies, Crabtree and Quarless, at TE.
Agreed that the Pack is getting hammered by injuries (all of this is on top of half of the starting secondary being on the PUP list).
I know that. It is a response to the “legal monopoly” that football and baseball have.
The owners are talking about going to 18 games. That means more injuries .The players will want more money. The owners will not pay more. They will lockout the players to get their way. The owners are rich and can shut the game down until they get their way, and they will.
Limiting them isn’t going to work. But the argument that “players can’t play more” isn’t much of an argument. The gist of your idea I agree with though, I’ve been arguing this for a while now, but every time I hear a NFLPA rep or a media member talk about the wear and tear on players I roll my eyes. The solution is pretty simple and that’s to expand the rosters and to create a injured reserve list to give coaches more flexibility with their rosters.
Coaches will very quickly learn that they need to change the way they do things. You could mandate it like you say but that’s a far too heavy handed approach. A better idea is simply to advise the coaches of the benefits of limiting playing time for players. Coaches who ignore this advice will lose games and lose jobs when they constantly burn out their players.
QBs who take every snap for their team are already in peril and will be in more peril in an 18 game schedule. They should be benched in blowouts far more often than they are and teams should use strategies that limit their hits further. If teams can’t field QBs for 18 games then the strategies need to change, not the game and not the schedule. If teams can’t field RBs for 18 games then they should be carrying more than 3 of them on their roster and should be substituting them in and out more often. This has happened recently in the RBBC trend but should happen more.
The NFL can go to 18 games and the starters don’t need to play more. Most teams have 15+ backups who never break a sweat each week, that however should change.
I agree for the most part, but they need to expand the rosters, give more flexibility with the PUP/IR decisions, and change the practice squad rules.
Injuries have a huge impact on teams in the NFL, and while it nice to think that backups should be as good as starters, no NFL team can do that at every position.
I don’t think team’s backups should be as good as their starters. I just think that teams playing with backups on the field is every bit as valid and entertaining as playing with “better” starters. If a team’s backups are really terrible and they lose then that’s just a lesson to not pay Albert Haynesworth $100M and more importantly to try and teach and cultivate young talent, a lost art these days.
The Packers this year are like Chinese Water torture. Every game is the drip drip dripof penalties, ineffective offense, no running game. Not bad enough, of course, to get blown out, but not good enough to blow anybody out. I suppose most of the NFL is that way these days.