The Green Bay Packers are heading into the regular season short-handed, and the two biggest names in the picture are Micah Parsons and Josh Jacobs.
Parsons is now on the reserve/physically unable to perform list, which means he’ll miss at least the first four games of the season while he continues recovering from an ACL injury. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the move, writing on X: "Packers officially moved Micah Parsons to Reserve/PUP, ruling him out for this season’s first four games."
There had already been talk that Parsons might be back by Week 6, when the Dallas Cowboys - his former team - come to Green Bay for "Monday Night Football." Parsons, though, didn’t promise anything close to that timeline.
"I think the people really want Week 6. I just want to come back when I'm feeling like myself again. I say Week 6 would be optimistic," Parsons said Bleacher Report's "The Edge" last week.
He added: "The (21-day practice) window opens the first week of October, two, three weeks of practice, but the reality is you gotta feel like yourself, you gotta be moving again. I don't wanna go out there and embarrass myself.
That's a real feeling. Packer nation, just know, when I come back, it's going to be up."
Parsons was brought in before the regular season last year with the expectation that he would boost Green Bay’s pass rush, and he did that before going down against the Denver Broncos.
Now the Packers are also dealing with trouble on the offensive side. On Sunday, the NFL placed Jacobs on the Commissioner’s Exempt List, which keeps him out of practice and games until he is removed. He’ll be on paid leave with the regular season less than two weeks away.
That leaves Green Bay staring at an early-season stretch without two of its biggest names, and possibly without one of its best players - if not the best player on the roster - when the games start counting.
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