A short week brings a challenge to get injured players healthy, and for the Detroit Lions it's an even more unique challenge given the key players who missed Sunday's game against the Atlanta Falcons. Practice reports will be estimations before Wednesday's official injury report for Thursday night's game against the Green Bay Packers.
Monday's practice estimation for the Lions was broadly good news. In the locker room later in the day, left tackle Taylor Decker and running back David Montgomery both pointed toward playing against the Packers if they have anything to say about it. Decker has missed the last two games with a right ankle injury, and Montgomery missed the game against Atlanta with a thigh issue.
On Tuesday, Dan Campbell had another short week media session. More specific injury updates were sure to come, and they did.
Detroit Lions injury updates: Who will play on Thursday Night Football vs. Packers?
Campbell said he feels pretty good about Decker and Montgomery being able to suit up on Thursday night.
"I feel like probably the two that are trending the most positive right now would be Decker and D-Mo" Campbell said "Those are two I'm starting to feel pretty good about."
Here's what Campbell said about safety Kerby Joseph, who missed the game against the Falcons with a hip injury.
"Kerby, still, we're kind of in a wait and see here. We'll know a little bit more today."
And regarding cornerback Emmanuel Moseley, Campbell seemed to point to him making his Lions' debut in Week 5.
"E-man is doing well. It's just a matter of -- Brad (Holmes) and I have talked about that -- is it time or do we wait until next week to see where he's at, since we can't really practice this week, other than full speed walkthrough."
Ideally, Decker will be able to play against the Packers to help stabilize an injury-riddled offensive line. Montgomery himself said he may miss a couple weeks right after his injury. Giving Joseph some extra time between games to get healthy after a short week would make a lot of sense, with Tracy Walker and Ifeatu Melifonwu playing as well as they did against Atlanta. And Moseley pretty clearly needs a normal practice week before it can really be determined if he's ready to play.
So, best to worst in terms of odds the aforementioned four guys play on Thursday night, Decker is the easy No.1, followed by Montgomery (I'd expect a questionable official listing for him), followed by Joseph, then Moseley--and the latter two seem to have fairly longer odds to play.