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Rob Demovsky, ESPN Workers Author
GREEN BAY, Wis. — For the second straight Friday, the Green Bay Packers listed Jordan Love as questionable on their harm report.
Do not count on the identical Saturday downgrade to uncertain as final week’s.
After not practising in any respect final week, Love took half in all three practices this week — Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, albeit in restricted style — and coach Matt LaFleur stated they are going to take it proper up till inactives are due 90 minutes earlier than Sunday’s kickoff on the Tennessee Titans if crucial.
When requested after Friday’s observe whether or not Love had been medically cleared to play, LaFleur stated: “We’re working by way of that.”
Whereas that is step one in a return to sport motion for the primary time since Love sprained the MCL in his left knee late within the Sept. 6 season opener in opposition to the Eagles, it is not solely the one issue.
“I feel there’s undoubtedly so much that is as much as him,” LaFleur stated. “You do not wish to put someone in that place, however actually he is doing every little thing in his energy. He needs to be on the market greater than anyone. However we’ll work by way of it. We’ll give it as much as sport time and we’ll see the place we’re at.”
It is doable that LaFleur already is aware of whether or not Love will play on Sunday or Malik Willis will make his second straight begin, as a result of when requested what else he must see with a purpose to decide whether or not Love will play, LaFleur stated: “There’s nothing extra to see, proper? We put all of it, every little thing on the market.”
“Yeah there’s undoubtedly quite a lot of it that’s psychological and simply attempting to ensure your thoughts’s proper for whenever you do get again and do get again on the sector, simply ensuring that there is no, I would say, concern of reinjuring or something like that,” Love stated on Wednesday throughout his first media session for the reason that harm.
“I imply I do job simply attempting to ensure that I am assured, assured within the rehab and every little thing I am doing in there and the trainers and listening to them and simply taking it day-by-day. However there’s undoubtedly a element that could be very psychological, simply ensuring your thoughts’s able to get again and on the similar time, it is powerful not getting reps at observe to a bit little bit of time without work of simply kinda will get you out of that rhythm of that groove that you just’re in, so all these issues are necessary however the psychological facet is large.”
If Love performs on Sunday in opposition to the Titans — or even when he would not play till Week 4 in opposition to the Vikings — his return would beat the preliminary timelines reported shortly after the harm within the closing seconds of the loss to the Eagles.
“He has to really feel proper bodily with a purpose to play,” Packers quarterbacks coach Tom Clements stated this week. “Within the NFL, often after the primary, second sport, from that time on, quite a lot of guys have issues they should handle with a purpose to get able to play at a excessive degree that week. It is a bodily sport; everybody has to do what they really feel they should do to prepare to have the ability to carry out. That is a weekly kind of scenario for everyone.”
Willis began final week’s 16-10 win over the Colts, however the Packers used a run-heavy sport plan that had Willis full simply 12 of 14 passes for 122 yards and a landing cross.
