Injuries Piling Up...

The list of players being held out of practice contains some marquee names. Greg Jennings, Charles Woodson, Sam Shields, Nick Perry, Jordy Nelson, John Kuhn, Jerel Worthy and Mike Neal were all sitting out of practice today. None of these players are likely to play on Sunday, though one or two may be up. One doesn’t need to look any further than our clunker of a performance at home against the pathetic Jaguars to see that the team is indeed missing these players.

I think all too often we are spoiled by the recent success our team has enjoyed, and tend to think that we can overcome most any injury that comes our way. Randall Cobb has done a fantastic job in relief of Greg Jennings, but the passing game clearly struggled when we lost Jordy Nelson as well. Yes we’ve got great depth at receiver, but losing top level talent is going to make you worse, no matter who your backups are. John Kuhn is an absolute expert in our offense, and although he’s not necessarily a dynamic player, he can be counted on to execute his assignment darn near every play. Arizona has contended this year thanks to a strong defense, and points may very well be hard to come by on Sunday. This will not be a cakewalk for Rodgers and company.

The news gets worse from there, as our defense is missing its unquestioned leader and six total starters (including Desmond Bishop and D.J. Smith who are both on injured reserve). Yes Arizona will be starting John freaking Skelton at quarterback, but he’ll be facing a watered down version of Dom Capers’ defense. Backups will be forced to the forefront this week, and they’ll need to deliver in what I am anticipating will be a low scoring affair.

The bright side of these injuries is that some young players have stepped up and delivered when given the opportunity. The obvious examples here are defensive backs Morgan Burnett and Casey Heyward. These two are flying all over the field, making tackles, breaking up passes, picking off passes, even rushing the passer. I’m reminded of the potential that Nick Collins showed as a youngster that eventually turned into bona fide Pro Bowl talent. Another youngster still flying under the radar is undrafted rookie free agent Dezman Moses. He must be showing the coaches something in practice because he is not only a consistent special teams contributor, but he has also been getting quite a few snaps at outside linebacker. Let’s hope these young guns have another week of plays left in them, because the Cardinals are not the kind of team you want to lose to.

We’ve got the bye week coming on the heels of this week’s matchup, and nobody wants to spend two full weeks thinking about a loss to the struggling Cardinals. I expect the Cards to play with emotion early on, as they’re no doubt pissed off after losing four straight games. It will be extremely important for the offense to break their pattern of slow starts in order to kill that emotion as quickly as possible. The last thing we need is a fired up underdog gaining confidence early on. This week will be a tougher test than most people seem to think, and the schedule only gets tougher from here.