Ravens Lead-Up

[MickeyDavis]

The Green Bay Packers’ already lean inside linebacker room grew even thinner on Friday as rookie inside linebacker Sam Barrington sat out of practice.

If Barrington couldn’t play on Sunday, that would leave the Packers with only two healthy inside linebackers in A.J. Hawk and Jamari Lattimore. They’ve already ruled out Brad Jones for Sunday’s game against Baltimore and Robert Francois suffered a season-ending Achilles tear in relief of Jones in last week’s 22-9 win over Detroit.


Cornerback Casey Hayward was practicing for the second consecutive day. Outside linebacker Andy Mulumba (ankle) and cornerback Jarrett Bush (hamstring) also returned.


Along with Barrington and Jones, outside linebacker Clay Matthews, running back James Starks and offensive lineman Greg Van Roten were not practicing

[ReasonablySober]

Hayward is officially out.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

Our top two defensive players are out? I'm officially nervous.

[Bucksfans1and2]

So many young players and hardly no vets at all. TT sticking to his plan and won't do anything to win now that could make it harder to win in the future. Some teams load up to make a run for a season or two and do everything they can to win in a small window. TT will stay on course with his draft and keep developing young players.

We lost allot more than we gained the last three years. and Have allot of young players getting allot of playing time. To me that rebuilding while staying competitive like TT always says.

That's not rebuilding, that's staying the course and believing in your system.

It's just a difference in semantics. You both are saying the same things.

Except he's completely wrong.

Signing veterans is what we did when we were actually rebuilding. We needed new pieces for a new defensive system with new defensive coaches. Pickett and Woodson were those signings.

For the last few years, we've been relying on the draft. We've always maintained that philosophy, it's the same philosophy we had with the superbowl team and it's the same philosophy we have now. We're not rebuilding. Not even close.

[bigrich88]

And Charles Johnson is off to Cleveland

[WiscSports1]

I think this is a good barometer for us in terms of where we stand. We're missing some key clogs on the defensive side of the ball and playing on the road is always tough. Would be thrilled with a win.

[SugarRay34]

I am really worried about this Suggs vs. Bahktiari matchup tomorrow. I want Finley over there chipping a whole lot. As much love as Bahktiari got in the preseason and I know he is a rookie starting at LT but he has had some problems lately starting with that Cincinnati game it seems like. And Suggs is the best he will have faced.

[Bucksfans1and2]

I am really worried about this Suggs vs. Bahktiari matchup tomorrow. I want Finley over there chipping a whole lot. As much love as Bahktiari got in the preseason and I know he is a rookie starting at LT but he has had some problems lately starting with that Cincinnati game it seems like. And Suggs is the best he will have faced.

Can't play it like that. Finley needs to be loose over the middle. You can do a bit with your backs, but this Ravens group is blitz happy up the middle so you don't even want your backs chipping too much. Bakhtiari and Barclay are going to need to be able to hold up. The boys gotta grow up under fire, these reps are going to be important in January.

The best way to take the heat off of the Tackles is going to be to pound the middle. It's not likely Ngata misses considering he practiced, but if he does or is even limited we're in much better shape. Our line has kicked ass in recent weeks, but Ngata's a different sort of animal. That guy can hold the point like no other, the interior is going to have to ball out and if it doesn't we might get one dimensional in a hurry which isn't a good look.

Their secondary is god awful and the way they play it we should be able to do work. They like to run the Cover-3 but make it look like man to man. Rodgers should be smart enough to rip it up, but I could see he or the receivers getting impatient and taking the bait on the big play. This is a secondary we should be able to rip apart.

Their offense is hideous. Flacco to Smith is the only thing they have that works even a little bit. We don't like to double and we probably feel that both Tramon and Shields can hack it one on one, but I wouldn't be too upset about leaving two safeties up high. We can squash this offense, with our safeties high or low. Their running game is horrible and they're incapable of sustaining drives. Don't give up the big play and we should be fine. I suspect we'll take a few away too when Flacco starts forcing it. If the pass rush can get home, all the better.

[MickeyDavis]

In the history of the NFL, there are probably hundreds of players who have taped, splinted or casted a broken thumb and returned to their position with little or no lost playing time.

If Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews were to try to play with the broken right thumb he suffered against the Detroit Lions last week — even after having surgery Monday to stabilize the fracture — the odds of him permanently losing grip strength would be relatively high.

Three orthopedic surgeons who specialize in hand injuries all said the type of break Matthews suffered — known as a Bennett's fracture — requires immediate immobilization and the prospects for long-term damage are high if the bones don't heal exactly right.

"The reason to get it to heal right is for 10, 15 years down the road so the person has a functional thumb that isn't in a painful arthritic state," said Barry Callahan, an orthopedic hand specialist at the James Andrews Institute. "To be able to pinch buttons and put your pants on, snaps, you name it.

"You don't really miss your thumb until it's in a cast or something like that. You find out pretty quick when you're asking your wife to button your shirt right."

A source confirmed a report from Matthews' occasional workout partner, Fox Sports' Jay Glazer, that the linebacker had suffered a Bennett's fracture. Surgery was performed Monday night at an undisclosed location and Matthews will miss around three to four weeks, according to coach Mike McCarthy.

A Bennett's fracture, named after Irish surgeon Edward Hallaran Bennett, who first described it in 1882, is an injury that occurs at the base of the thumb where the first metacarpal bone attaches to the hand. The bone breaks away from the joint, leaving behind a fragment that remains attached to one of the ligaments forming the thumb joint.

Outside of sports, the injury is often found among people who have hit someone or something with their fist, creating tremendous force down the shaft of the thumb and into the joint. In Matthews' case, the injury occurred during a sack of Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, either as he swatted his right hand on the takedown or at the end of the play when he landed on the ground.

"It's a very painful injury," Callahan said. "It's not really that you couldn't play with it, but it's one of the things where you aren't going to play very well. You're not going to want to shove your hand in there. You're not going to be aggressive with it."

According to Richard A. Berger, a professor of hand surgery and chair of the division of hand surgery at the Mayo Clinic, the most critical part of the repair is making sure a smooth surface exists when the first metacarpal is reattached to the remaining fragment.

If the two pieces aren't perfectly aligned, the prospects for arthritis occurring in the joint are great.

"We want that (fracture) to be anatomically reduced as much as possible with the hope that will allow it to heal," Berger said. "If these are too far apart from one another, the bone surfaces won't be in contact with each other properly and it may not heal. We call that a non-union.

"And the other thing, we want it to heal so that the bone is positioned correctly and not rotated in a funny direction, but also to preserve the joint surface that it doesn't get worn away because there's a big step off in there."

The surgery generally consists of a plate, screws or pins drilled into the first metacarpal and the fragment to form the union of the two pieces. Glazer reported that pins were used in the surgery Matthews had.

These pins, also known as "K-wire", are drilled through the skin and into the two pieces of bone so they are held together in proper union. Typically, the wires stick out of the skin until the bone is healed and then they are removed.

With some hand and finger fractures, a cast can be worn and a soft padded club can be worn over it so a player can continue playing. Several Packers have played with clubs in recent years, including safety Morgan Burnett, end Cullen Jenkins and linebacker Brandon Chillar.

In Matthews' case, however, none of the doctors recommend playing with a club because the chances of the two bones moving — even with the pins in place — is too great.

"What you worry about is pulling the hardware out of the bone fragments in the end, which is sort of a morselized mess," Callahan said. "It's a tightrope for these guys. They'd rather be playing, but they have to factor in what the long-term downside is in trying to go too soon."

In describing Matthews the day he drafted him in 2009, general manager Ted Thompson marveled at the strength and quickness of his hands. "He's got the ability to extend his hands and leverage against offensive linemen and stay on his feet in positions where most people wouldn't be able to stay on their feet," Thompson said.

Thus, the prospect of Matthews losing some or all of the grip in his dominant hand made the Packers' decision to sit him down for about a month all the more logical. On the sack on which he brought down Stafford, Matthews used his powerful right arm to trip the quarterback and bring him down.

The main reason a cast wouldn't work in protecting Matthews were he to play right away is that it would not adequately protect him from the force that the hand would be subject to in live action.

"There's a risk of displacing it," said Peter Evans, director of the Orthopedic Upper Extremity Center at the Cleveland Clinic. "A cast doesn't hold it completely. A cast is a centimeter away from the fracture and if the muscles contract they can cause it to displace."

Even if the pins were strong enough to hold the thumb together, Berger said he would have reservations about someone playing with a club on because the potential for infection would exist with sweat seeping in where the pins are located.

For the present, Berger said it's key to keep the thumb immobilized and sometimes the forefinger so there are no muscles pulling on the thumb joint. In most cases, a plaster cast is used, but it's not known with Matthews whether the surgeon used a cast or some other device to stabilize the joint.

Evans said if the joint is displaced again, it's likely the surgeon would have to operate on the hand through an incision and "the more invasive you are, the more complications you might have."

As for the length of time an athlete would be sidelined with a Bennett's fracture, all said it would depend on the severity of the fracture, the patient's recuperative powers and the doctor's comfort with the amount of healing that has taken place.

All three said the recovery time is usually six weeks, but since they have no direct knowledge of Matthews' injury, they couldn't predict when he would be cleared to play. McCarthy said he was told Matthews could return in as soon as three weeks, but ultimately it will be team physician Patrick McKenzie's decision.

When he returns, Matthews will have to wear a cast or brace on his hand.

"We're all nervous about these things healing as it is," Berger said. "There's all these variables that are going to affect your risk assessment with the player. The player is going to be champing at the bit to get back out there and so is everybody else associated with that player.

"It will be the team doc or whoever takes care of this person that is going to be nervous about this because we often just don't know how strong the repair is until it's healed. Once it's healed, it's going to be as strong as the original equipment. The best people to work through that are the patient and the person who is taking care of him."

[giraldo5]

Johnny Jolly piece on NFL Network coming up at 8 central

[Bucksfans1and2]

McGinn is trolling me personally right now. I'm convinced.

[rilamann]

Yeah, we are not rebuilding. We are always re-tooling, as that is the nature of player turnover in the NFL. But I don't agree that just because you're young, you're "rebuilding". These young players we have are better than the higher priced FA's on the market, in most cases.
.

Re-tooling is probably a better word to describe the Packers right now than rebuilding.

My basic point is that going back to 2010 and 2011 the Packers have lost some talent due to free agency, due to some guys getting old and they've lost some guys due to injury and they haven't totally replaced all that lost talent as of yet and the talent that they have replaced so far has been through the draft so its all been young guys.

Which is fine obviously and I like a lot of the guys we have drafted the past two drafts,I have confidence TT will get this team back to where it needs to be,I have never questioned TT.

But it's going to take some time to replenish the talent and then get these young guys the experience that they need for the Packers to be back on that top contender status.

Like I been saying,I feel that the Packers are still pretty good right now.I just think that the Packers are a notch or two below several teams in the NFC this season.

[BUCKnation]

McGinn is trolling me personally right now. I'm convinced.

Saw this and had to look up his article. The title didn't disappoint.