The Green Bay Packers lost center Evan Dietrich-Smith to a sprained knee against the Detroit Lions, which only accelerated the team’s downward spiral.
Well, good news! He returned to practice today. And then he got injured again…
Dietrich-Smith sprained an ankle toward the end of the session and wasn’t able to continue. This is his third injury in just over a month. He also sprained his knee against the Eagles.
“I was feeling really good up until I rolled my ankle,” Dietrich-Smith said. “So I’m just trying to do as much as I can to make sure I can get ready for Sunday.”
With Dietrich-Smith out, the Packers move right guard T.J. Lang to center. In previous games that meant Marshall Newhouse got into the lineup, either at right tackle or right guard. When Newhouse was in at right tackle, Don Barclay became the right guard.
Well, we’re pretty sure that experiment is over. Newhouse was terrible against Detroit. Terrible even by Marshall Newhouse standards of being terrible. That’s about as terrible as you can get.
The Packers benched Newhouse in favor of Lane Taylor, who’s… wait for it… an undrafted rookie!
And still, the Packers have former first-round pick Derek Sherrod sitting around waiting to play, but they refuse to put him on the field for anything other than field goals.
I guess the right thing to do here is just hope Dietrich-Smith’s injury isn’t serious.