Just as I was worried about - we sold the farm for damaged goods ^^^
Season isn't over. Remember when we lost Kupp and Puka at the same time for weeks and carried on? But the coaching staff, management, and doctors have real explaining to do. This wasn't caught in the pre-trade medicals? If it wasn't, you've known about it for months now... why wait until after week 1 to get the surgery? Did the 49ers game aggravate it?
The trade looks bad now, value wise. You don't give up a young stud pass rusher and lots of very high draft picks, for an aging stud pass rusher that is about to entire his final career stretch, and will miss a month or more, with several key matchups in that stretch. Yeah, Garrett is definitely better than Verse. Is the delta between him and Verse worth that much for only a % of the season, missing several big games? Not IMO. We could have kept the picks and used that as ammo at the trade deadline to bolster the roster, pass rusher or otherwise (which is always my preferred approach, you never know where your needs will be in November with how injuries always pop up).
Broncos, Bills, Eagles, NYG (who will be much improved this year) are on deck. This isn't a Sam Darnold situation where your key injury arrives during a cupcake scheduling stretch (as per usual, Seattle getting all the luck). The Rams need to lock in. Because if they don't the season could be over before it started. We need at least 2 of those games to be Ws.
We will see how the team responds. Hopefully, it galvanizes them! It could also make the vibes in the room bad. AD99 came back in large part to play with Garrett. Now that isn't going to happen for X weeks, and even when it does, will Garrett be as effective? Knees on such a big man are no joke. He isn't young anymore, either. Gotta think Donald is wondering a lot of what the fans are (why not get the surgery earlier given it's been known for months his knee was bad etc.).