– The bad injury news was not done today for the Green Bay Packers, even after the news that B.J. Raji would have to miss the season due to torn biceps.

Head coach Mike McCarthy announced today that starting center J.C. Tretter will miss “multiple weeks” with a knee injury. According to ESPN Milwaukee’s Jason Wilde, Tretter suffered no ligament damage and is expected to miss five to six weeks. Rookie center Corey Linsley will start in his place.

“He [Linsley]took all the snaps today,” said McCarthy. “His confidence will grow each and every day. He’ll be ready when we step on field for Kansas City. Corey has a very good understanding of our offense. It won’t change us anything from how we approach games moving forward. I feel good about him.”

Tretter was having a terrific summer and the injury certainly hurts, but it is far from some kind of death sentence and nothing the Packers can’t overcome. They will be on their fourth center in four years and have had no problems having a great offense with Scott Wells, Jeff Saturday and Evan Dietrich-Smith. None of them were upper-echelon NFL centers when they were with the team.

Linsley comes from a big time program at Ohio State, so the stage should not be too big for him. He is as strong as an ox, as his 36 bench press reps were the most at the NFL Combine. The biggest questions for Linsley will be pass protection and continuity with the first string offensive line after not playing with them all summer. He certainly faces a tall task with the crowd at CenturyLink field in Seattle for the opening game. Linsley has graded out as the third best center this preseason according to Pro Football Focus.

– In other injury news, McCarthy mentioned inside linebacker Brad Jones should be ready for Week 1 at Seattle and nose tackle Letroy Guion is “getting close”.

– Here is the list of the seven players that the Packers cut today:

S Charles Clay

WR Chris Harper

QB Chase Rettig

WR Gerrard Sheppard

FB Ina Liaina

LB Korey Jones

CB Anotnio Dennard

All seven players are eligible for the practice squad, so this may not be the end for all of them.

 

 

 

 

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Matt Bove is a writer at PackersTalk.com. PackersTalk.com. You can follow him on twitter at @RayRobert9.

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