Packers: The offensive line will manage without Elgton Jenkins

The Green Bay Packers are piling up what seems like their longest injury list in recent memory, and another standout player was added to that list this past Sunday. Versatile lineman Elgton Jenkins went down in the third quarter with a knee injury and later on it was confirmed that it was the dreaded ACL tear.

Losing Jenkins is a massive blow to this offensive line, but it’s not something that the Packers aren’t prepared for. The Packers have operated without Jenkins this season actually, as he missed Weeks 3-5 due to injury. In those games, the Pack went 3-0 and scored a fair amount of points — but also gave up six sacks. Even with Jenkins playing though, the Pack are still giving up sacks which proves that David Bakhtiari is the real glue of this offensive line.

Although Jenkins is fantastic and definitely the future anchor of this team, I think the Pack will be able to survive losing him for the rest of the year — especially with the hope that Bakhtiari is able to come back from the home stretch. In December, the Packers play three teams that are .500 or above and all of those teams include some prolific pass rushers.

For the Los Angeles Rams game this week though, I have genuine concern about Aaron Rodgers being kept up-right. Combine the fact that the Rams have Aaron Donald and Von Miller with Rodgers’ mobility being limited due to his toe injury and I think there is a recipe for disaster in that game.

It’ll be interesting to see how the team adjusts and who slides to what position or even if the Packers pick up a free agent lineman or two to compensate for the loss of Jenkins, but overall — I think the Packers will be able to slightly manage another catastrophic injury loss.