Detroit Lions injury updates: Brian Branch, Taylor Decker injuries are ‘nothing serious’

The Detroit Lions entered their Week 4 game against the Green Bay Packers with eight members of their active roster dealing with injuries.

Four Lions players missed the game entirely—Jason Cabinda, Halapoulivaati Vaitai, Emmanuel Moseley, and Kerby Joseph were ruled out or deemed inactive—while another four played through their respective injuries. Running back David Montgomery (thigh), left guard Jonah Jackson (thigh), and center Frank Ragnow (toe) all played a full allotment of snaps and didn’t look any worse for wear during the game.

The game wasn’t as kind to starting left tackle Taylor Decker (ankle), who reportedly aggravated his ankle during the game and was a bit worried that he may have re-injured it.

“It sucked,” Decker told Justin Rogers of the Detroit News. “I mean, I knew it was gonna be like that. It’s definitely aggravated and hopefully, it’s not completely re-injured and stuff like that, a setback. But we got a couple extra days leading into the next game, so it’s probably just going to be something I just got to deal with for a little while now.”

During the game, three more Lions were forced to leave at different points but all returned to the field after brief exits. Linebacker Derrick Barnes was cramping but was able to work through it fairly quickly. Defensive back Chase Lucas was dealing with an illness, but only missed one of his special teams snaps before returning. Defensive back Brian Branch appeared to suffer the most concerning injury, rolling his ankle severely enough to require a cart ride to the locker room.

Branch returned to the field, but you could tell his ankle was bothering him. Eventually, his ankle gave way again, and he was pulled from action in the fourth quarter and sat out the remainder of the game.

While Branch’s soft tissue injury could cost him some time, the good news is that the x-rays showed that there were no bone fractures, thus giving him a more positive prognosis.

On Friday, coach Dan Campbell was asked for injury updates on Decker and Branch. While he implied things were still in flux, the update’s overall tone was more good than bad.

“I’ll know more by this afternoon,” Campbell noted. “But I feel like we got out of the game pretty good with Decker. It doesn’t appear to be anything too serious with Branch, but there again, don’t know exactly how he’s going to feel until we get going when we get back this week, so I don’t really have anything.”

Because the Lions played on Thursday night this week, they get a bit of an extended break. Players are expected to have the weekend off to recuperate, and then return to work on Monday. While Campbell may have more updates when he meets with the media again early next week, the official injury report won’t be out until Wednesday.