Lloyd’s 21-day practice window opened up on Wednesday
“You can’t make this stuff up,” said Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur on Friday when discussing his third-round rookie running back. MarShawn Lloyd, who has battled a hamstring injury beginning with the preseason opener, went on the injured reserve earlier in the regular season with an ankle injury. On Wednesday, Lloyd returned to practice, opening a 21-day window that forced the Packers’ hand into deciding whether or not he would remain on the active roster by the end of the three-week timetable.
Lloyd was initially listed with a hamstring/ankle injury on the Packers’ first injury report of the week, but LaFleur noted on Thursday that Lloyd’s hamstring flare-up was a false alarm, as the running back cleared medical scans. Now, Lloyd had another setback.
When Lloyd was one of two missing players in practice on Friday, the assumption was that he had some sort of setback to his ankle injury after being limited in practice earlier this week. Instead, he was diagnosed with appendicitis. According to LaFleur, Lloyd was getting worked on by the medical staff when he asked them to take a look at his abdomen, which was experiencing pain, leading to the discovery.
For those who remember, former Packer tackle David Bakhtiari went down with appendicitis in 2022, ultimately leading to an emergency surgery and the offensive lineman missing around a month of play. LaFleur said he didn’t know whether or not Lloyd had undergone surgery, but that Green Bay is talking to the league to resolve any sort of injured reserve hurdle the team might face. As it stands right now, Lloyd will go on season-ending injured reserve if he’s not activated to the 53-man roster 18 days from now — an improbable recovery timeline if he does have an appendectomy. Obviously, this seems against the spirit of the 21-day practice window rules, as this is clearly a different injury than the one that placed Lloyd on the injured reserve in the first place.
The Packers currently have one open roster spot on their 53-man roster, as they haven’t backfilled following the trade of Preston Smith to the Pittsburgh Steelers. How they plan to use that roster space in the short term is now a major question mark, as that spot was presumed to be earmarked for Lloyd’s return.