The Detroit Lions have a rather significant game coming up this weekend when they play an NFC North opponent in the Minnesota Vikings. The first injury report of the week is pretty difficult to surmise statuses for the weekend, but initial returns seem to indicate that Kevin Smith and Nick Fairley might both be questionable for the Vikings game.
Smith, who suffered an ankle sprain a couple of weeks ago after moving into the starting lineup to replace Jahvid Best, re-aggravated the injury in last weekend's loss to the New Orleans Saints. He didn't practice on Wednesday, but that doesn't necessarily mean he won't be ready to play on Sunday.
The other major player that missed Wednesday's practice is defensive tackle Nick Fairley. Fairley has missed a few games this season already, but with Ndamukong Suh finishing up his two-game suspension this weekend, the rookie becomes much more important.
Louis Delmas, Chris Houston and Lawrence Jackson all missed the first practice of the week as well. Justin Durant, Brandon McDonald, Rob Sims and Willie Young were all limited while Kyle Vanden Bosch sat out due to a reason that was "not injury related."