Knee injury again sidelines Ferguson

There’s no telling when or if Robert Ferguson will be back after he re-injured his knee on Friday.

The Green Bay Packers were looking for Ferguson, who missed the past three games with a torn lateral-collateral ligament in his left knee, to reinforce their short-handed receiving corps for Monday night’s game against Minnesota.

But his left knee buckled late in practice Friday when he collided with safety Nick Collins while trying to catch a deep ball from quarterback Brett Favre, and Ferguson subsequently was carted off the field, which cast a pall over the few remaining plays of practice.

Coach Mike Sherman wasn’t available to reporters Friday, and the only information the Packers released was that Ferguson had injured the same knee, and his status would remain the same on their injury report until he was examined again today. He was listed as questionable (50 percent chance of playing).

Ferguson rode back to the locker room on an injury cart, which along with the disheartened look on his face, suggested his injury was more than a minor setback. By all appearances, his chances of playing Monday night appear lost, and depending on the severity of the injury, he might be finished for the season, considering there’s only seven games (and six weeks) remaining.
“Right before that, we were kind of joking around and next thing you know, he goes down,” backup receiver Andrae Thurman said. “It was just a totally different pace, changed the pace of practice. I just hope he’s all right. He looked pretty down, but I don’t know the extent of the injury.”

If Ferguson can’t play Monday night, Sherman and offensive coordinator Tom Rossley will have to make some last-minute adjustments to the game plan after working since Monday off the assumption Ferguson would be in the starting lineup.

In the previous three weeks, with Ferguson out temporarily and Javon Walker and Terrence Murphy out for the season, the Packers drastically had cut back on three-receiver offensive sets and almost totally scrapped their four-receiver grouping. They instead relied more on their base personnel (two receiver, two running backs and a tight end) and two tight-end alignments.
With Ferguson healthy enough to play, he was going to start against the Vikings and play as much as his recovering knee would tolerate. He and Driver would have been the starters, and the three-receiver set would have included Antonio Chatman, with Thurman as the No. 4 receiver on occasional downs. If Ferguson is out, Chatman moves back into the starting lineup, Thurman is up to No. 3 and Chad Lucas is No. 4.

“It’s hard,” Chatman said. “Seems like every week somebody gets hurt, or when they heal something happens again to them.”

Ferguson originally tore his LCL on Oct. 23 at Minnesota, and his prognosis was to return in four to six weeks. He’s established a reputation for returning quickly from injuries and playing hurt, and perhaps he rushed back, though his return falls just within the usual time frame for his injury. This weekend, he’ll be four weeks removed from the injury.

It was unclear Friday whether he tore or strained the LCL again, injured some other part of his knee or both. If he tore the LCL again, he could be out for the rest of the season. If he tore his anterior-cruciate ligament, he would be facing at least a nine-month rehabilitation.
If the damage was less serious, he could be back soon. But the signs were ominous when he went to the locker room on the injury cart.

“It’s just bad luck. Nothing we can do about it,” receiver Donald Driver said. “How do you get good luck? Do you need to do something? Get somebody a gift or something? I don’t know. Right now it seems it’s not going our way.”
source : www.packersnews.com/