There's a line in the hit musical, "Hamilton", in which the cast sings a simple yet eloquent phrase: "The world turned upside down". For the Green Bay Packers, that line could very well be applied to their 2025 season, because their 16-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers in Week 9 was a loss in more ways than one.

Long-term, you don't want to lose a game at home to what appeared to be an inferior team coming into the game, but the Packers are still 5-2-1 and still on top of the NFC North. Worse things have happened.

The loss within the loss may sting and reverberate for seasons to come, though. Superstar tight end Tucker Kraft went down with a tough looking knee injury in the third quarter. He was blocking and had another blocker,  offensive guard Sean Rhyan, pushed back into his right knee. Kraft immediately went down holding the knee, and he had to be carted back into the locker room.

After the game, head coach Matt LaFLeur said that the prognosis didn't look good for the star tight end, and reports suggest that the Packers believe he tore his ACL. By the time you're reading this, it may even be confirmed, because it's all but certain at this point:

"Tuck means a lot," said Packers quarterback Jordan Love, according to Rob Demovsky of ESPN. "I think his leadership role and then obviously his play on the field. He's been playing at a high level. We'll see what the injury is, but not having him out there for the rest of the game was huge. So, yeah, it's one of those situations, though. It's the next man up. We've got to find ways to keep playing at a high level without him out there."

It's time for Luke Musgrave to step up for Packers with Tucker Kraft injured 

Kraft has burst onto the scene to become one of the best tight ends in the league, so it can be easy to forget that he was actually drafted after Luke Musgrave in the 2023 NFL Draft.

The Pack selected Musgrave out of Oregon State with pick No. 42 in the second round and then doubled-down with Kraft out of South Dakota State with pick No. 78 in the third round. 

All indications coming out of that draft was that there were higher expectations for Musgrave compared to Kraft, but injuries to Musgrave early in his career and the other-wordly superstar development of Kraft flipped those expectations on their head.

It's worth noting that Musgrave still has the potential to Packers saw in him coming out of Oregon State, though. He's huge at 6-foot-6, 253 pounds and he's got speed to burn. He ran a 4.61 40 at the NFL Scouting Combine. For comparison's sake, Kraft ran a 4.69.

Musgrave is a deep threat if he can put it all together, and if you're looking for a tight end who can split the seam and open up a defense up the middle, he'd be your guy.

He's settled into a TE2 role in Green Bay and has only gotten occasional targets as a leak-out option, but alongside Matthew Golden and Christian Watson, he could provide the Packers with some legitimate downfield firepower.

Love mentioned that it's "next man up" for the Packers with Kraft gone, which means that this is Musgrave's chance to shine and prove why he was a viable second-round draft pick.

He may not have the ceiling of Kraft, but he has a high enough floor to step into the TE1 role and provide a punch for the Packers.

Can he do it?

Only time will tell, but going back to a famous line from "Hamilton"...

"I am not throwing away my shot".