In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, there are two words on the lips of every Wisconsin sports fan today: Micah Parsons. Parsons went down Sunday against the Broncos and tore his ACL in a noncontact injury. Oates could tell it was bad right away; there have been enough noncontact leg injuries in recent years to be able to tell pretty quickly what’s wrong. He was on track to potentially being named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, says Oates, and his loss will be felt for the rest of the season. Parsons is a consistent force of a player that offenses need to plan around and works to elevate the entire defense. With him out of the picture, someone’s going to need to step up. Who will that be? Hard to say, but Jeff Hafley is going to need to get creative on defence against the Bears on Saturday…

As for the rest of the game, which saw the Packers lose to the Broncos, it wasn’t too much prettier. On top of the many big names who were also injured, albeit less seriously, Green Bay just didn’t seem to show much force in the second half. Both cornerbacks failed to do anything, Oates says, before or after Parsons got hurt. Jordan Love was especially troubling, especially in the fourth quarter. They had plenty of chances to get back in the game, but nothing ever materialized. Yes, they were up against a great defense, but once Christian Watson went down it seemed like the entire offense went down with him. One good thing to note from Sunday is Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden , who were able to make a bit of difference after slow seasons due to injuries. Is it time for Golden to step up and start really producing? Lucas thinks he might.

In some more poor Wisconsin sports news, the Badgers Men’s Basketball team had a disaster of a game against Nebraska this weekend. The Cornhuskers are slept on this year, and losing to them shouldn’t bring too much shame. Losing to them by 30 points, however, does. On top of having not figured out their admittedly difficult defense, the Badgers simply looked soft against Nebraska. That does not bode well for when they take on the highly physical Big 10 teams on their schedule. 

Finally, some kudos is due to Kelly Sheffield and the Badgers Volleyball team, who are heading to the Final Four once again. The entire team seems to really be enjoying playing the sport and playing with each other, and that enthusiasm rubs off on the fans. They’ll be playing Thursday night against Kentucky, and as they say, they refuse to… well… lose. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.