Several injuries made today’s lineup decisions difficult due to questionable players. When the player is questionable, not only is it up in the air if he will play or not, but also, if he does play – how much playing time he will have and how well he will perform. NFL players put their whole heart into the game, many times even when they are severely injured. You can bet they will play if there is anyway they can be on the field.
Don and I both had questionable players today. He had the Indianapolis Colts’ T.Y. Hilton in his line-up and I had Demaryius Thomas of the Denver Broncos. T.Y. had a knee injury that kept him away from practice this week, and Demaryius had a hip injury from last week’s game against the Carolina Panthers.
My dilemma about Demaryius was that if I didn’t play him, I needed to start Willie Snead of the New Orleans Saints in the 1:00 matchup against the New York Giants. I couldn’t wait to find out if Demaryius Thomas would play in the 4:00 game; I had to decide before 1:00.
After listening to experts on Sirius XM Radio and reading reports on a few different websites, Don decided to play T.Y. Hilton. Even with his bum knee, T.Y. still had 41 yards. I benched Demaryius Thomas and started Willie Snead instead. The uncertainty was more than I could handle! Demaryius and Willie were within a point of each other, so my decision wasn’t as important as I thought it was.
Today seemed to have more injuries than usual. It will be interesting to see the stats tomorrow and find out which ones were serious and how this will change our lineups for Week Three.