Malcom Floyd Injury: Star WR's Absence Adds to Chargers' Woes Against Packers

The rough patch in which the San Diego Chargers currently find themselves will continue on Sunday against the Green Bay Packers, thanks in no small part to the absence of Malcom Floyd.

According to the San Diego Press-Enterprise, Floyd is inactive for the Bolts' Week 9 home game against the defending Super Bowl champions on account of a hip injury that's been bothering him for several weeks now.

The sixth-year receiver out of Wyoming played well in San Diego's 23-20 overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday night, hauling in five catches for 107 yards.

His absence leaves the turnover-prone Chargers offense without a key cog and struggling quarterback Philip Rivers without one of his favorite targets.

That being said, the Bolts have a number of other pressing concerns, health and otherwise, that figure to push concerns about Floyd's ability to play to the back-burner.

First and foremost is the inactivity of running back Ryan Mathews, who is still recovering from a strained groin. Mathews, who accounted for 112 total yards against the Chiefs, has finally delivered on his considerable promise after an uneven rookie campaign in 2010.

Without Mathews, San Diego will lean on Mike Tolbert, who sat out the game in KC with a hamstring strain, to carry the load out of the backfield.

Without those two, and starting guard Kris Dielman, the onus will fall even harder on Rivers' shaky arm, which led the NFL in interceptions with 11 through the first eight weeks of the 2011 season. His inconsistencies have been emblematic of a Chargers team that still hasn't quite found its way out of its annual, early-season sleepwalk.

A game against the undefeated Packers should serve as a rather potent sniffing salt for the team as a whole. Whether they will be up in time to beat Green Bay at home is a different story entirely.

One that isn't likely to end happily for the folks of San Diego, given how opportunistic the Packers defense has been in snagging interceptions, not to mention how precise Aaron Rodgers has been in orchestrating Green Bay's offense.

Keeping up with that attack would have been difficult enough for Rivers and the Bolts, even if Floyd and Mathews had been available to play. Now, they can only hope that Tolbert, Vincent Jackson and Antonio Gates—all three of whom have been hobbled by injury at one point or another this season—will be enough of a cushion to keep Rivers' throws out of harms way and get the Chargers back on the straight and narrow in the process.