You may not be wrong in raising the question, but the answer to the question of whether key healthy players play in this game or sit out for load management is most certainly "play". At this point in the season, everyone on the roster has some sort of knick or minor injury issue they're dealing with, and will continue to do so the rest of the year. Sitting out week 8 of the regular season games isn't going to make a difference in them suddenly being 100% healthy for week 9. As for other guys who've been out that may be close to being healthy, I doubt Bakh is an option just because he's only been practicing a week - him sitting tomorrow night isn't a reactive load management decision, it's part of their initial plan for getting him back on the field less than a year from tearing his ACL. P Smith could see action back on the field if he's healthy enough to go, but I doubt the sign Mercilous if they thought his oblique issue was a 1 game issue. King being out makes little difference to me - if he does suite up we all know who's getting picked on in the secondary. My hope with MVS is he was held out this past Sunday to give him a few extra days to get his conditioning back, and he's going to be on the field tomorrow - it would be valuable getting a deep threat on the field to keep the Cards defense sort of honest. Even if the Packers had their full compliment of wideouts for Thursday, their gameplan should be more run-heavy against this defense to help control time of possession and open up the middle of the field for passing to tight ends.