We’ve seen a number of players play (and in some cases, play very well) with club casts on their hands.
Packers’ star linebacker Clay Matthews returned from a multi-week absence on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. He wore one of those club casts on his injured right hand, and hoped to still manage to wreak havoc in the Eagles backfield.
It didn’t exactly work as planned, for Matthews or his team. The Eagles won, 27-13, and Matthews was nearly shutout on the game, rarely pressuring Eagles’ quarterback Nick Foles.
After the game, Matthews admitted to Kevin Seifert that he struggled with both the obvious fact that a club cast hindered his all-around play, in addition to pain that he felt through the soft cast.
"“It’s moreso difficult going out there with one hand than dealing with the pain,” he said. “Obviously it’s going to hurt, but that wears off. They assured me it would be very difficult to reinjure the hand being in a club with the protection that I have and how it’s casted down."
Not great words to hear if you’re a Packers fan. But at least he’s playing through the pain and it seems unlikely that he’ll be re-injured at this point in time. Of course, that’s little solace for an injury-ravaged team that saw more starters drop like flies on Sunday afternoon.