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Darius Slay clutched the back of his right leg and turned and looked at the Detroit Lions' sideline. Immediately, he knew.
Slay suffered his second hamstring injury of the season in the first half of Sunday's 17-6 loss to the New York Giants, and the Lions now face the prospect of missing their best cornerback for the two most important games on their schedule.
Lions coach Jim Caldwell declined to update Slay's injury status at his news conference today, repeating his oft-used line, "Check the report."
According to Pro Football Talk, Slay is scheduled to undergo an MRI exam today, and it wouldn't surprise anybody if he missed time.
Slay missed two games with a pulled hamstring earlier this year, and he reappeared on the Lions' practice report with the same injury last week.
The Lions (9-5) play the NFC-leading Dallas Cowboys next Monday night and host the Green Bay Packers in a game that could decide the NFC North on New Year's Day. They seem like they can't afford to play without Slay for any extended time.
Slot cornerback Quandre Diggs was lost for the season to a torn pectoral muscle earlier this month, and No. 2 cornerback Nevin Lawson's wife is scheduled to give birth to the couple's first baby around Jan. 1.
For now, the Lions, who likely need at least one more win to make the playoffs, will play with Lawson, Johnson Bademosi and Asa Jackson as their top three cornerbacks. Adairius Barnes and Alex Carter also are on the practice squad.
"We’ll make adjustments," Caldwell said. "We’ve had situations where we’ve had a lot of guys get banged-up this year. I think it’s kind of like the old Shakespearean term — I think Shakespeare said it — he said that often sorrows come, they don’t come as a single spy, they come in battalions. There’s been times when we’ve had battalions throughout the year, in terms of problems, issues. But our guys have always hung in there, they’ve always focused and they’ve always been able to overcome whatever the odds are."
Considering Slay's recent history of hamstring injuries, the Lions might need to be extra careful with his return or risk losing him for a possible playoff run.
"I’ll leave that up to our doctors," Caldwell said. "They make a determination on that, and then we thus react from there."
Briefly: Monday's game at Dallas will air on Channel 7 in Detroit in addition to ESPN. Pregame coverage on WXYZ will begin at 7 p.m.
Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
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