TAMPA, Fla. -- The Green Bay Packers lost one of their best defensive players, linebacker Edgerrin Cooper, to what is expected be a season-ending Achilles tear during the third quarter of Sunday's 17-14 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
"Not good" was how coach Matt LaFleur described the outlook for Cooper.
When asked if it was a season-ending injury, LaFleur added: "I would suspect that, yes."
The third-year pro went down without contact and reached for his lower left leg well away from where safety Xavier McKinney sacked Buccaneers quarterback Jalon Daniels with 8:31 left in the third quarter.
"That still hurts, bro," said fellow linebacker Zaire Franklin. "That's one of those things that it's a win, but it don't feel like a win. Obviously, me and Coop, we're locked in. So, just my boy going down, that hurt.
"I'm celebrating [with] X and then obviously you hear a whistle blowing, and I look back and I see Coop and I'm like, 'Nooo, not Coop!' You know? Obviously you get over there and you could kind of see the severity of the injury, so we kind of know what that means."
McKinney said he didn't know what happened until well after his sack.
"I was celebrating and turned around and noticed the game kind of stopped a little bit, and then that's when I realized," McKinney said.
Green Bay led 17-7 in the third quarter when it looked like Cooper was going to blitz on third-and-8 from the Bucs' 37 on Tampa Bay's first possession of the second half. On the play, he looked behind him as if someone kicked him in the back of the leg, but there was no one there. Cooper then pounded his fits into the turf before the medical staff reached him. He could not put any weight on his left leg and was ruled out shortly after he was carted off the field.
"He was very emotional," said linebacker Isaiah McDuffie, who replaced Cooper. "We were just telling him we got your back, we got your back. He just got hurt, he was devastated. It's just having his back and just playing for him at that point."
McDuffie left the game briefly after he got poked in the eye and lost a contact. Ty'Ron Hopper played five snaps before McDuffie returned to finish the game.
Cooper, a second-round pick in 2024, came into the game with 21 tackles, a team-best six tackles for loss and was second on the team with two sacks through the first three games. In 2½ quarters Sunday, he added nine more tackles, including a sack.
In the second quarter, Cooper's first interception of the season and second of his career helped give the Packers the lead. He picked off a Daniels pass with 36 seconds left in the first half that led to a 58-yard field goal by Trey Smack that put the Packers ahead 10-7 at halftime.
The Packers (2-2) held on to win despite two fourth-quarter turnovers thanks in part to the defensive performance without Cooper. Defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon blitzed on the Bucs' final three plays, and the result was a sack by safety Evan Williams, a short completion and a near interception by cornerback Keisean Nixon.
"It definitely [dulls] it down a little bit, the thrill of a win, just because I feel like you guys all know what he means to this team, what he means to this defense," Williams said of Cooper. "He's somebody that just sets the tone into every game. He's somebody that's going to get us all jump-started. That's going to be definitely a tough hole to fill, but again at the same time, it's a next-man-up league."