Alexander’s Shoulder Injury Leaves Huge Void in Secondary

All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander was carted to the locker room following a shoulder injury sustained late in the third quarter.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The hits just keep on coming for the Green Bay Packers, who beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday but lost their best defensive player to a potentially significant injury.

All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander blew up a fourth-and-4 pass late in the third quarter by delivering a wicked shoulder blow to Steelers running back Najee Harris. Harris broke the tackle, only to be swarmed by Oren Burks and Chandon Sullivan well short of the first-down marker while Alexander dropped to a knee.

Alexander ultimately was driven to the locker room for further evaluation. After the game, while coach Matt LaFleur said “I don’t know” when asked about the injured right shoulder, NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo said Alexander sustained an injured AC joint.

An AC separation, which stands for acromioclavicular separation, occurs when the clavicle or collarbone separates from the shoulder blade, The Charlotte Observer’s Jonathan Alexander wrote last year after Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey suffered an AC joint injury.

McCaffrey missed three games with the injury last season; he wound up sitting out the final four games after injuring his quad during his first week back to practice.

There are six grades of AC injuries, with Type 1 being little more than a mild sprain. The more significant the injury, the longer the player will be sidelined and the more likely surgery will be required. No doubt the Packers’ medical staff will be judging the severity of the injury before setting a plan.

“Fortunately, most of the time these are your lower-grade injuries,” Dr. Alex Creighton, UNC-Chapel Hill’s team orthopedic surgeon, said in The Charlotte Observer story. “The vast majority of these can be treated conservatively. There’s variability on how long they take to get better, and if you’re going back to the exact same thing that cause your injury, you’re obviously susceptible to re-injuring it.”

According to a study, most AC joint injuries are sustained by receivers and defensive backs. Only 1.7 percent of injuries required surgery and the mean time missed due to the injury was 9.7 days.

In 2019, Steelers cornerback Joe Haden suffered an AC joint injury in the opener but wound up starting all 16 games. In 2015, Packers receiver Randall Cobb suffered an AC joint injury in the preseason finale but played in all 16 regular-season games.

The Packers will play at the Cincinnati Bengals next week. The Bengals are 3-1. With Tyler Boyd, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, they have one of the best receiving trios in the NFL, though Higgins missed Thursday’s victory over Jacksonville due to a shoulder injury.

With Alexander out and Kevin King (concussion) inactive, the Packers closed out the victory over Pittsburgh with Eric Stokes and Isaac Yiadom at cornerback and Chandon Sullivan in the slot.

“Just next man up, next man up,” outside linebacker Rashan Gary said. “It sucks at the moment but we’re in the middle of the game and we can’t harp on that. Now everybody, at the end of the game, we’re checking on him and making sure his spirts are up and see what’s happening. It’s just that next-man-up mentality and trying to get this win for Ja’ because if he was out there then he’d be wanting the same.”

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