GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Green Bay Packers offensive tackle Zach Bako-Bewele has a torn patellar tendon and expects to miss the rest of the season.
Bako-Bewele, who changed his name from Zach Tom before the season, hurt his right knee in the first quarter of the Packers’ 20-17 overtime road victory over the New York Jets on Sunday. The 27-year-old right tackle said he is planning to undergo surgery Thursday and that he believes the recovery should take about nine months.
“It’s definitely not what I anticipated happening, but you’ve just got to get back to work and then start thinking about next year,” Bako-Bewele said Tuesday.
Packers receiver Jayden Reed and Bako-Bewele were carted off the field after consecutive plays during Green Bay’s opening series. Reed remained in a New Jersey hospital overnight for observation rather than traveling back home with the team after suffering what the Packers described as a neck injury.
Bako-Bewele was blocking David Bailey during a third down incompletion when the injury occurred. Bako-Bewele said he wasn’t sure exactly what caused the injury, but he knew right away that something was wrong.
“I mean, I don’t think the turf helped,” Bako-Bewele said. “Yeah, I don’t know. Just something that happened, so I’ve just got to move forward.”
Bako-Bewele had partially torn his patellar tendon in the same knee during a Dec. 14 loss at Denver and missed the rest of the 2025 season. The injury occurred during the same game in which Packers All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons tore his anterior cruciate ligament.
Bako-Bewele said this latest injury is a complete tear.
“We see him working, grinding in here long hours just for the chance to come back to play with us, and to go down like that, that’s terrible,” center Sean Rhyan said.
When he’s healthy, Bako-Bewele perhaps is the Packers’ best offensive lineman. The 2022 fourth-round pick from Wake Forest has made 53 starts, including 48 over the past four seasons.
Anthony Belton took over for Bako-Bewele at right tackle during the Jets game and was penalized for holding on two separate occasions. The 2025 second-round pick from NC State started six games at right guard and one at right tackle during his rookie year, but he primarily worked at tackle during training camp this year.
Bako-Bewele might not be the only starting offensive lineman missing when the Packers face the Atlanta Falcons in their home opener Thursday night. Left guard Aaron Banks, who missed the Packers’ season-opening loss at Minnesota because of a knee issue, started Sunday’s game but left in the first half with a toe injury.
Green Bay (1-1) has allowed seven sacks over its first two games. The Packers also rank last in the NFL in yards rushing per game (64.5) and 29th in yards per carry (3.3).
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Green Bay Packers guard Zach Bako-Bewele (50) is tended to on the field during an NFL football game against the New York Jets in East Rutherford, N.J., Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Green Bay Packers guard Zach Bako-Bewele (50) is taken off the field following an injury during an NFL football game against the New York Jets in East Rutherford, N.J., Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Hayden Panettiere had been released from a drug rehabilitation facility in Malibu, California, just weeks before her overdose death from a mixture of illicit and prescription drugs, according to a coroner’s report obtained by The Associated Press.
Panettiere planned to spend her birthday in Grenville, then head to Ukraine to visit her daughter, her father said.
The investigator found blue pressed pills and a straw on a table that would later test positive for fentanyl. A white powdery substance was found in her suitcase in a sunglasses case, according to the report.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Actor Hayden Panettiere died from an accidental overdose of several drugs, including fentanyl, a coroner in South Carolina said Tuesday.
Panettiere, 36, was found unresponsive in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on Aug. 16. Her on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were at the home.
According to a statement from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office, a combination of fentanyl and its chemical byproduct, as well as the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam, a muscle relaxer and a drug used to treat major depression and other serious mental health disorders, was found in Panettiere's system.
The office did not include further details from the autopsy report in its initial release.
Asked for comment on the coroner's report, Kasey Kitchen, a publicist for the family, told The Associated Press that “the investigation is still ongoing and the case is complex."
Greenville Police confirmed Tuesday that their investigation into Panettiere's death is continuing.
Paramedics responded to Panettiere's apartment last month after a 911 call and performed CPR and other advanced resuscitation efforts for more than 40 minutes before she was declared dead. An autopsy found no signs of trauma that could have contributed to her death, Greenville County Coroner Mike Ellis said in a statement.
The police report released after her death listed medications Panettiere was taking, but the drug names were redacted.
Panettiere soared to fame in the TV shows “Heroes” and “Nashville.” In her memoir “This Is Me,” released in May, Panettiere described lifelong scars from her early fame and acknowledged being addicted to alcohol and enduring postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.
She also endured family struggles and tragedy. Her parents’ marriage was strained and eventually ended. Her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who was also an actor, died of a heart condition in 2023, at age 28.
Panettiere also talked about her long relationship with Brian Hickerson and allegations that the aspiring actor physically abused her.
He was charged in 2020 with multiple counts of felony abuse, and he pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner and served a short time in jail due to the case. He was sentenced to four years of probation and anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions.
Hickerson completed the terms and recently asked a judge to reduce his conviction to misdemeanors; that request was denied.
Panettiere was one of two children born to Skip Panettiere, a former New York City fire captain, and Lesley Vogel, a former soap opera star. She acted in commercials and soap operas, including as the ever-troubled Lizzie Spaulding on “Guiding Light.” In “This Is Me,” she wrote that the traumas her character endured, from being kidnapped to killing her mother’s boyfriend, led her to associate “catastrophe with adoration.”
She then played a cheerleader with supernatural powers in “Heroes,” which propelled her to fame in 2006.
By 2015, Panettiere was playing a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on “Nashville,” which aired on ABC for four seasons before being canceled and revived on CMT. She did her own singing in the show, which scored some hits on country charts, spawned U.S. tours and earned Panettiere two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations.
But she also said she was in a horrible cycle of using alcohol and drugs to battle depression and anxiety and had to find a way out of the darkness. She entered rehab while filming the show.
“I was the one who put myself in the first treatment center. I was drowning,” she said in a 2023 interview with Women’s Health magazine.
FILE - Hayden Panettiere arrives at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 20, 2009, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
FIle - Hayden Panettiere arrives at the Teen Vogue Young Hollywood Party in Los Angeles on Sept. 20, 2007. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
