Santonio Holmes, James Starks Injury Updates
Fantasy owners and New York Jets fans should closely monitor the status of No. 1 WR Santonio Holmes, as he could very well miss a second straight game with a hamstring injury. According to ESPN New York’s Rich Cimini, Holmes joined tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. as non-participants in practice today.
The Jets are set to face the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are coming off of a bye week, on Sunday, but it sounds like they will likely be without their most talented receiver. They were able to defeat the Atlanta Falcons without Holmes, though, but the Steelers do have a better pass defense despite being a worse (though probably not by much, given how the Falcons have played this season) team overall. Despite a monster game against a putrid, run-down Buffalo Bills secondary, Santonio Holmes hasn’t had a good season due to injuries. Let’s hope he can get healed up from this hamstring pull, because Holmes has been having some awful luck on the injury front, dating back to last year’s severe Lisfranc injury.
Green Bay Packers fans are also missing some notable players at practice today, as ESPN NFL Nation’s Rob Demovsky reports that Casey Hayward, Brad Jones, and James Starks (among others) are not practicing. Starks seemed to have sprained his knee against the Cincinnati Bengals, and rookie Jonathan Franklin did a terrific job taking over for Starks, who had a monster game in Week 2 in relief of Eddie Lacy. The Alabama product and unquestioned Packers No. 1 back ran for 99 yards this past week, and Starks could be relegated to No. 3 duties if Franklin gets over his fumbling issues and puts together some more big games like in Week 3.
Starks has not timetable at this point with the knee injury, and I fully expect him to miss this week’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. Consider his status the week after against the Cleveland Browns to also be dicey, as Mike McCarthy stated last week that Starks would miss a couple of weeks.
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