During the post-practice presser on Wednesday, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was peppered with questions about Pro Bowl cornerback Jaire Alexander and the status of his shoulder injury. LaFleur stated early on that Alexander, who was not practicing on Wednesday, would “most likely” be out against the Cincinnati Bengals this week.
When asked if Alexander was going to have surgery on his shoulder, LaFleur said, “We’re still gathering opinions on that. We’re going to try to avoid that at all costs.” In a follow-up, he was asked if surgery would mean that Alexander’s injury would be season-ended; He claimed that would be “most likely.”
On Monday he said that there would be an update on Alexander on Wednesday, but that seems to be the gist of the update, as he declined to give a timetable for the decision on the starting cornerback.
In other injury news, LaFleur also said that cornerback Kevin King was “close” to making it out of the NFL’s concussion protocol. King was practicing today for the Green Bay Packers, as was inside linebacker Krys Barnes, who also was in concussion protocol last week and missed the team’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Near the end of the presser, LaFleur was asked if Yosh Nijman has a chance to start if Elgton Jenkins (ankle) is healthy, and the coach said there would be a discussion about it. Obviously, Nijman would only even hypothetically start until David Bakhtiari is healthy enough to be activated, but that’s still high praise for a third-string left tackle who had never started an NFL game until a few weeks ago.
