And so it begins! It took almost a week, but the Green Bay Packers finally have their first season-ending injury. Rookie receiver Jared Abbrederis has a torn ACL.
Abbrederis suffered the injury in practice on Thursday — a practice that he finished — and sat out on Friday, watching from the sideline with a sleeve over his knee.
And so, the Green Bay Packers 2014 injury plague is officially underway. Anyone want to start taking odds on who the first guy to go down with a hamstring will be?
If there’s a bright side here, we think this is probably it. Abbrederis hasn’t actually played an NFL game yet, so it’s not as if the Packers are now missing a big-time contributor from 2013.
Although he’s done pretty well in camp by all accounts thus far, it’s also not as if Abbrederis was going to be one of the Packers top three receivers this year, either. It was starting to look like he might be the guy on punt returns, but the Packers have plenty of other options there as well.
This just opens up the door to a roster spot for a talented guy who might not otherwise have gotten one. The Packers have approximately 37 receivers in camp. A number of them — Jeff Janis, Kevin Dorsey, Chris Harper, etc. — probably have NFL talent, but would have had a hard time making the Packers because the receiver group is so deep.
Now, one of those guys is going to get a roster spot and a whole season to show what he can do.