Trainers apparently have no idea what's wrong with his sore leg. X-rays and an MRI have shown nothing. But there's no indication that Mathis will be back on the field this week. Kubiak effusively praised Andre Davis, Kevin Walter and David Anderson after Sunday's loss in Atlanta. Nevertheless, the more he talked about being able to count on those guys, the more it seemed he was also talking about Mathis.
''He's been very sore in his lower leg and but everything that we've checked out has been OK,'' Kubiak said. ''So no reason not to think that he won't be back out there this week, but, you know, we've been through this before so we'll wait and see. I just know that (head athletic trainer) Kevin (Bastin) and them are working extremely hard with him and hopefully he's back this week out there contributing.''
In another news from Kubiak's Monday press conference, he sounded hopeful that Jacoby Jones and Ahman Green could play this week.
''I think he's close,'' Kubiak said of Green. ''Will he be out there Wednesday? I don't know. I know he's doing better. I spoke to him earlier today; we'll just continue to treat him and we'll know more when we step on the football field Wednesday if he comes out there and practices.''
Of Jones, he said: ''Jacoby is better. We're hoping, we've got our fingers crossed that he may play this week. We're not going to know. He had a procedure done today, I don't know exactly what it is, where they inject the shoulder, from a healing standpoint. And he is making progress. We've got our fingers crossed that he will be a part of everything we're doing this week, but probably won't know until we put him on the practice field.''
Kubiak was non-commital about a change at cornerback, saying: ''Well, we continue to evaluate what we're doing. We definitely, we had a quarterback play really good against us and we made some mistakes back there and gave some free plays, free first downs, four of them I think to be exact, with some penalties. We've got a young player we think a lot of in (CB) Fred (Bennett), but Fred has, in all honesty, in the last few weeks, hasn't been healthy with his hamstring and hasn't been working. He did get back to work some Thursday, very good on Friday last week. Fred's got to learn to practice like a pro and prepare like a pro and he's on his way to doing that, but if we can get him healthy, we'd definitely like to get him some playing time. Where that's at, whether it's nickel, how we do that, we'll see. But it's a matter of him stepping to the plate and showing he's ready to play, also.''
