Considering the Packers luck with history in recent history, the Packers should probably consider themselves lucky; while they didn’t escape injury free from the season opener against the Seahawks, they did avoid a season-ending injury or even a long term injury. Nevertheless, the Packers came out of the game battered and bruised, but whose going to be healthy for game 2 against the New York Jets?
Brandon Bostick: Bostick suffered a slight fracture to his fibula has been out since the the 2nd preseason game against St. Louis. Mild fractures to the fibula, which is a bone located lateral to the tibia (the major bone of the lower leg) can typically be treated without surgery and usually heal by themselves, which is good news for Bostick. Fractures of the fibula usually take somewhere between 4-8 weeks, but can take several month to regain full strength and range of motion. As a point of comparison Reggie Bush fractured his fibula in 2010 with the Saints and returned to play after 8 weeks. Considering that Bostick fractured his fibula only about a month ago indicates that it likely wasn’t too severe of an injury and news coming out of practice this weeks points towards Bostick having a shot at playing against the Jets. The Packers could use Bostick as he is their most athletic receiving tight end.
Bryan Bulaga: Bulaga suffered a knee injury against the Seattle Seahawks during the season opener and immediately raised concern over his health; Bulaga has suffered through a spate of injuries throughout his career, starting in 2011 when he dealt with a myriad of knee injuries followed by missing the final 6 games of the 2012 season with a fractured hip. Bulaga’s 2013 season also ended before it started after he tore his ACL during the family night scrimmage, which sent him to season ending IR. ACL injuries are more common than MCL injuries and Bulaga likely has an increased risk of injuring ligaments in his knee due to his previous injury/surgery if its in the same knee or he might just be idiopathically susceptible to lower body injuries. It appears that Bulaga might have gotten off lucky this time; while initially reported to be a tear of the MCL, it appears now that it was only a sprain, which can be characterized into 3 different grades; Bulaga likely has a grade 2 sprain since he has been spotted at practice wearing a brace, which also likely puts his recovery time at around 4 to 6 weeks. The best news however is that Bulaga avoided a grade 3 sprain, which typically involved tearing the MCL, tearing the MCL usually requires crutches for mobility and usually surgery, which of course has a longer recovery time. It’s almost certain Bulaga will not be available against the Jets, but his presence during practices this weeks points towards a shorter recovery.
Demetri Goodson: Goodson suffered a concussion against the Raiders in game 3 of the preseason and has not played since. While little news has been released on Goodson’s health, Goodson did practice in full this week, so presumably Goodson has passed through the independent cognitive tests clearing him for play. At this point, it’s likely the Packers will keep Goodson inactive since there are no injuries to the defensive secondary and Goodson is at best a special teams player and does not figure to contribute to the defense. From a health perspective Goodson is likely healthy enough to play against the Jets, but as a raw rookie may spend another week on the injury list since he is not needed.
Brad Jones: Jones injured his quadriceps during the 3rd preseason game against the Raiders and did not play the preseason finale against the Kansas City Chiefs. While Jones did practice the week going into the season opener against the Seahawks, Jones did not play well even though he played 100% of the defensive snaps. Mild quadricep sprains can take as little as 10 days to heal while more serious injuries can take up to 6 weeks; considering that Jones was cleared to play against the Seahawks, the presumption is likely a more mild injury. Nevertheless, which Jones might have been healthy enough to play, he likely wasn’t healthy enough to play well, grading out as one of the worst 3-4 ILB in week 1 (however, AJ Hawks was right there with him as the 2nd worse, and he doesn’t have an injury alibi). Jones has been out of practice this week, which likely indicates that either Jones re-aggravated the injury at some point during the game, or he wasn’t really ready to play in the first place (which goes against the Packers medical MO). Based on the fact that Jones hasn’t practiced as of yet, it’s unlikely that he will see the field against the Jets; more likely than not a combination of Jamari Lattimore and Sam Barrington will start in place of Jones.
Eddie Lacy: Lacy suffered his 2nd recorded concussion against the Seahawks. While initially alarming since Lacy has already suffered one concussion in his short career (which was caused by Brandon Merriweather’s egregious helmet to helmet hit and knocked Lacy out for a game), Lacy appears to be on a quick recovery; while Lacy was pulled from the game due to the leagues new concussion protocols, new reports indicated that he was feeling fine quickly afterward and he cleared the first step of cognitive testing within the first few days. Another good sign is that Lacy has practiced this week and it looks like there is a good chance that he will suit up against the Jets. At this point, the league is being conservative with concussions due to the massive amount of ligation they’ve seen from current and former players, so it’s likely that Lacy is close to returning if he’s practicing. One interesting thing of note is that Lacy was wearing a new helmet that supposedly designed to fight concussions (it’s quite noticeable since there is a “tab” in the center of his helmet); it will be interesting to see if Lacy felt his helmet mitigated some of the impact or had no effect.
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Thomas Hobbes is a staff writer for Jersey Al’s AllGreenBayPackers.com.
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No news here.
Would Bulaga be inactive or be available to replace Sherrod if/when he seems to be getting Rodgers murdered or do they just close their eyes and have plausible deniability to the crime of premeditated slaughter. 🙂
TT’s eyes have been closed for some time now. Sherrod is his little darling and will have every oppurtunity possible to help pyle drive Rodgers. If I were Rodgers I would pay off Sherrod’s contract and let him go be a matador, that is his calling.
I’m hoping to see Pennel, Barrington and Lattimore start this week. Can’t be worse than what we saw last week. 4-3 with Neal/Peppers = DE sure isn’t how we expected these two guys to be deployed. What happened to elehant? Why have Neal lose weight to play DE? Nothing makes sense with player deployment on defense and results show it. Pathetic this bunch still has a job.
Our ILBs suck. 🙁
I concur Bearmeat!
Goodson being cleared is interesting. Earlier, I assumed that Goodson would be cut when he became healthy and be signed to the PS, thus opening a 53 man roster spot for Rolle, maybe Banjo, or a position of need. Your article makes it sound like Goodson has made the team this year. While I think Goodson has talent, he is not ready to play, so that, if it is the case, is a surprise to me.
like I said the day after the game, everybody was on Brad Jones but I was the only guy to even mention that he was obviously hurt and wasn’t 100%. I don’t like him much to begin with but it at least he has some type of excuse for his poor play. Hawk has none.
I am with Archie. I better effin see Pennel activated and Barrington and or Lattimore starting this week in Jones’ place. They have the beef in the middle to stop the run, the problem is Capers keeps these guys on the sidelines while Jones, Hawk and Guion get run over. It’s time Capers quits playing this cautious game. He did it with Bishop for years.
If everything Capers has done in the past has been wrong than the opposite would be the right thing. He needs to do what George did. I bet it works. Pennel, Lattimore, Barrington, and Richardson. Get these guys playing time and I guarantee you the Jets will not be able to run. That question is will he?
Once again, the terms “sprain” and “tear” are NOT mutually exclusive. A sprain is almost always a tearing of fibers within a ligament. Sprains usually do not require surgery because the ligament, though weakened, is not severed. It will heal on its own. If the tearing is complete (so that the two ends of the ligament are no longer physically connected), it is called a “rupture,” which generally DOES require surgery.
I only bring this up (as other have before me) because some posters like to say that McCarthy is LYING when he says that Bulaga “tore” an MCL rather than saying he “sprained” it. He’s not lying. A sprain generally is a tear.
The term sprain is more generic and the term rupture is more specific. All ruptures could be called sprains, but not all sprains could be called ruptures.