Stone Sits Friday as Lineup Questions Keep Growing

Mark Stone will not play Friday, and that sends another ripple through a lineup that can feel very different depending on who is available. In the playoffs, absences like this do not just affect one line - they change how everybody else gets deployed. The coaches are left to shuffle matchups, special teams, and late-game trust on the fly. When a player of that caliber is out, the game plan usually gets shorter and a lot more fragile.