The Detroit Lions (2-2) and Arizona Cardinals (1-3) reported injuries prior to Sunday afternoon’s game in the desert.
Although Lions safety Brian Branch looked great in practice this week, he won’t play in Sunday’s game. However, fans may not have to wait long to see him again.
Let’s take a look at Friday’s injury report and update what we know.
Note: Any changes from the most recent injury report will be in bold.
The injury report confirms what Lions coach Dan Campbell had already more or less revealed about the return of Cade Mays and Brian Branch. Neither player is quite ready to play after just one week of practice, but the Lions are targeting the Packers game outside of the bye week for both of their returns. Both will remain in Detroit during the bye to prepare their bodies for Week 7.
“They’re going to be here continuing to condition, continue to prepare — as many football things as they can do without it being with the training staff,” Campbell said. “Then let’s start them Green Bay week. Let’s go ahead and then we’ll evaluate. Hopefully by the middle of the week we’ll have a pretty good idea. We’d love to get them ready to play Green Bay.”
Bartch will miss his third consecutive game. But the Lions opted not to put him on injured reserve, so it’s reasonable to believe he, too, could be back after Detroit’s bye week. It will be interesting to see if he re-enters the competition for the starting left guard position or if Christian Mahogany has done enough to retain that role.
Ya-Sin was demoted from the starting lineup before suffering an injury on special teams last game. It is unclear how serious his injury is.
Williams told the Detroit Free Press on Thursday that his foot injury was just a bruise and that he should be ready to play the Cardinals. Limited practice Thursday and Friday and a questionable designation leave the door open for him to miss the game, but all signs are positive for the Lions defensive tackle. And that’s good news, because Campbell sang his praises Friday.
“He’s such a good athlete and he’s powerful. He’s extremely strong and he really has a heightened awareness of football. His FBI (football intelligence) is very high,” Campbell said. “And so when you combine all of that with a guy who is in his second year and just took off, he really took off at the end of the year, and he picked up where he left off, had a really good camp and four games, he continues to climb.”
Not listed with an injury designation
Wonnum has been dealing with a back injury for over a week now, but it hasn’t affected his availability. Although he only played 36 snaps last week.
Cardinalif injury designations
Gn sports
