GREEN BAY — Josh Jacobs’ fractured right ring finger will require surgery, and the Green Bay Packers running back will be sidelined for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time.
In fact, with surgery scheduled for sometime this week, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Jacobs, who spent the season’s first six games on the NFL’s commissioner’s exempt list, being placed on injured reserve.
“I think everything’s on the table,” LaFleur said Monday, one day after the Packers (6-3) beat the New England Patriots, 45-27, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. “As far as how long he’ll be out, I think that’s to be determined.”
Based on LaFleur’s soft timeline, Jacobs will certainly miss Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field and probably won’t be cleared in time for the team’s Nov. 25 game against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. The Packers’ next game after that is Dec. 6 at New Orleans.
Jacobs, who suffered the injury on his fourth carry of the game, broke his finger when he stiff-armed Patriots safety Craig Woodson at the end of the run, ending his day after 10 snaps.
“He tried to go back in,” LaFleur said. “He had no grip strength.”
Jacobs finished with just 5 yards on his four carries against the Patriots. In his three games since being reinstated, he has managed only 80 yards and one touchdown on 36 carries (a 2.2-yard average) as part of the NFL’s least-productive running game.
After the game, Jacobs said he hoped he’d be able to play through the injury with a specialized splint or brace.
“That’s what we were trying to do during the game. We were just trying to figure out a way if I can still go,” Jacobs said. “The biggest thing is just being able to grip the ball. Catching is obviously going to be tough [too].”
When Jacobs departed, the Packers had only two remaining running backs — Pierre Strong and Kaleb Johnson, with MarShawn Lloyd inactive with a knee injury and Chris Brooks still on injured reserve with an ankle injury that has forced him to miss five games since going down Oct. 4 at Tampa Bay.
LaFleur said there is a “good chance” that Brooks, whose 21-day practice window opened last week, would play against the Vikings. His ability as a pass protector would give the offense a lift against Minnesota’s blitz-heavy defensive scheme.
Asked if he thought the Packers needed outside help at running back, LaFleur replied, “Not necessarily.”
But with Lloyd’s status also unclear, Johnson would be the most logical option as the primary ballcarrier. He carried 14 times for 68 yards against the Patriots, including a 34-yard run. That run was the Packers’ longest of the season, eclipsing the 31-yarder he had at Tampa. Johnson leads the Packers in rushing with 172 yards on 42 attempts (4.1-yard average) and scored his first career NFL touchdown against the Patriots.
“He played really good. He played really good,” Jacobs said. “I was trying to tell him just on the sideline [to] just keep doing what he’s always done his whole life. Trust his eyes, trust his reads and just keep making plays and don’t try to over-press. Just get it when it’s there. And he did a really good job at that.”
Johnson fell out of the rotation after losing fumbles against the New York Jets in Week 2 and again against the Buccaneers in Week 4. He saw garbage-time snaps in an Oct. 11 win over the Chicago Bears — in which he had a 23-yard run — but played only four snaps against Dallas on Oct. 18 and was inactive the next two weeks against Detroit and Carolina before Lloyd’s injury forced the Packers to have him active against the Patriots.
“I thought he did a good job. I thought when there were lanes there, he hit it,” LaFleur said of Johnson’s performance against New England. “Obviously, he broke a couple explosive runs. That was definitely encouraging to see.”
Meanwhile, linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper, who departed Sunday’s game after playing only two defensive snaps because of what was announced as a chest injury, is not expected to miss time, LaFleur said. LaFleur said Hopper came to the medical staff during warmups and said he was feeling discomfort in his chest, forcing special-teamss ace Nick Niemann to fill in for him after his early departure.
“That kind of took us by surprise,” LaFleur said. “He came in right before [kickoff] saying he was having a hard time. He felt like there was something in his chest. That was certainly a big blow in that situation, but I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Nick Niemann for his ability to go in there and play the entire game defensively and not miss a snap on special teams as well.”
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