ATLANTA -- The Green Bay Packers lost seven different players during Sunday's NFC Championship Game and had to finish with a defensive tackle playing right guard.
Three significant contributors went down in the first half of Sunday's game: safety Kentrell Brice, defensive back Micah Hyde and guard Lane Taylor. Hyde and Brice are the fifth and sixth defensive backs in the Packers' nickel and dime packages, respectively, and Taylor is the Packers' starting left guard.
In the second half, the Packers lost Jake Ryan (shoulder), right guard T.J. Lang (foot) and right tackle Bryan Bulaga (evaluated for a concussion), and running back Ty Montgomery dealt with a rib injury.
"Well it's never easy to watch your players get injured, especially if it's in a serious nature," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "Frankly, I'm a little numb to it. This is kind of how we've had to deal with it, we've been able to overcome it. Today we could not. Today we couldn't overcome the pace that these guys were playing at. They played lights out and it got away from us. You have to overcome all those things when you compete in these big games."
For Lang, it was the same foot he broke earlier in the season and missed three games.
"It never fully healed in the first place," Lang said. "The past month, I kept aggravating it a couple times. I don't know. Today, I don't know. It felt similar to the first time I did it. I don't know. The first time I broke it, it didn't show up on the X-rays; it took some X-rays the next day. It felt the same. I'll have to get some tests in the morning to see how it looks."
Lang, who made his first Pro Bowl this season and his in the final year of his contract, was in tears as he came off the field.
"It was everything combined -- pain, obviously a lot of unknowns this offseason," he said. "I think everything hit me at once. It's a tough, tough situation."
Brice suffered a shoulder injury while making the tackle on the game's opening kickoff. He tried to return for a few defensive plays but then sat out. Another rookie, Marwin Evans, replaced Brice in the dime package and dropped a potential interception.
Hyde, the nickelback, also suffered a shoulder injury. Quinten Rollins, who was cleared from the concussion protocol shortly before the game, replaced Hyde.
Don Barclay replaced Taylor, who had started every game this season after the Packers cut Josh Sitton at the end of the preseason.
Ty Montgomery also went in and out of the game with what he said was a rib injury.
With Bulaga out, the team was forced to play defensive tackle Letroy Guion on the offensive line.
Guion said he last played offensive line in high school.
"The other guys were telling me what to do," he said. "I play against offensive linemen so I kind of know the steps that they take. I was going to be OK on that part, but I really don't know the plays."