The Packers will be without linebacker Zaire Franklin for Sunday’s game against the Detroit Lions. He’s been ruled out after taking a knee to the shin during practice.
Franklin’s absence leaves the Packers perilously thin at linebacker, where they were already missing the services of Edgerrin Cooper. Now they’ll have to lean on Isaiah McDuffie and Ty’Ron Hopper to man the spot.
McDuffie has historically
been pretty good against the run, but he’s a liability against the pass. Teams have victimized his short stature (he’s just 6-foot-1) and limited lateral agility to attack him over the middle. One such team? The Detroit Lions. In their 2024 game against the Packers at Ford Field, the Lions’ Jared Goff competed all nine of his passes when he threw McDuffie’s direction, generating 68 yards and a touchdown. The Lions won, 34-31.
Hopper, meanwhile, has been of a concept than a player since the Packers took him in the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Across 39 regular season games since then, he’s logged just 222 snaps on defense and has shown little when he’s been on the field. If he’s secretly a standout, now’s the time to show it.
The injury couldn’t have been more poorly timed. The Packers are heading into a matchup with a Detroit Lions team that wants to run the ball out of heavy personnel, and Franklin would have been a big part of slowing down that attack, which is led by the near-supernaturally fast Jahmyr Gibbs. Any blow to that effort is a big problem.
To make matters worse, the Packers will play on Thursday Night Football in Week 8, and it seems like a safe bet that Franklin will probably miss that game, too. That’s another tough blow for the Packers, but for Franklin as well; he had missed just one game in his NFL career to this point, and now the timing of a pretty random injury could keep him out for two.
