Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers will be without their top three wide receivers as they square off against the Arizona Cardinals, the NFL's last undefeated team, on Thursday Night Football. Davante Adams, Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling will all be sidelined.
Adams, an All-Pro wideout and Green Bay's most dangerous receiving threat, and Lazard were ruled out due to the league's Covid-19 protocols. According to Rob Demovsky of ESPN:
Adams and Lazard were ruled out because of COVID-19 protocols — the vaccinated Adams because of a positive test and Lazard as an unvaccinated close contact.
The Packers held out hope as late as Wednesday that Lazard could be cleared to play before the NFL officially ruled him out in a phone call to the team, ESPN's Jeremy Fowler reported. Lazard, who is unvaccinated, and his agent, Peter Schaffer, made a case to the league that Lazard was not a close contact to Adams and thus had no chance of COVID transmission. Lazard was negative on five straight days of rapid and PCR testing. He also argued that his five-day quarantine period should have started Saturday instead of Sunday.
Valdes-Scantling is recovering from a hamstring injury and the Packers decided not to activate him tonight.
Rodgers and company will be left with Randall Cobb, Equanimeous St. Brown, Malik Taylor and Amari Rodgers at wide receiver. The rest of Rodgers' weapons — namely running back Aaron Jones and tight end Robert Tonyan — will be active, though Rodgers did admit that the team is worse off without Adams.
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