Joe Thomas, Jason Peters injuries were the worst gut punches of Week 7

Age is a cruel thing for NFL players. Unless you’re Tom Brady.

Three more of the league’s venerable veterans suffered potential season-ending injuries in Week 7, adding to a star-studded NFL inactive list that already included players like Aaron Rodgers, J.J. Watt, and Odell Beckham Jr.

All-Pro left tackle Joe Thomas, the second entry behind “losing” in a list of consistent things about the Cleveland Browns, missed the first snap of his career thanks to an arm injury that will end his 2017 after just seven games.

While Thomas is likely to return as strong as ever to protect whomever random event-generator the team falls backward into at quarterback, the future isn’t nearly as certain for Carson Palmer. The former Pro Bowler was a big part of Arizona’s surge back to .500, but a broken arm suffered in a London loss to the Rams has dashed the Cardinals’ playoff hopes and left fans wondering whether they’ve seen the last of Palmer on the gridiron.

To make matters worse on Monday night, Jason Peters, a 14-year veteran and blindside protector for MVP candidate Carson Wentz, was carted off with a knee injury.

That’s 514 career starts all lost to injury in a two-day span. Thomas, Palmer, and Peters weren’t the only players to lay depressing news on the NFL this week, though. Here are Week 7’s most devastating moments.

The only good thing about Joe Thomas’ season-ending injury is that it will keep him from his 125th career loss with the Browns. No player in the league has been as consistent as the All-Pro left tackle who, for more than a decade, has been the best football thing about the city of Cleveland. Thomas has shucked off years of trade rumors to put in his time for a franchise that has done nothing but fail to surround him with winning talent — and he’s never complained.

Now, after more than 10,000 straight plays and 10 Pro Bowl invites, he’ll have to deal with the first major injury of his career. His 2017 is over after just seven games, putting an end to a decade-long streak of accolades and respectful caveats for discussions about the Browns.

Cleveland staffers know how important it will be to get Thomas back on the field as the Browns rebuild.

“I promised him that when he is back, if he is back, that we are going to get this thing figured out because he is Cleveland Browns football,” Browns coach Hue Jackson said. “He is a guy that keeps us all going and moving forward. We owe him more than what we have given him thus far.”

An aircast is never a good sign and it’s unfortunately how Week 7 ended for Peters, who left the field Monday night on a cart. An MRI on Tuesday confirmed that Peters tore his ACL and MCL.

The 35-year-old offensive tackle just signed a three-year contract in June and the Eagles would still be on the hook for more than $6 million if the team cut him in the offseason. So really, it’ll likely be up to Peters if he wants to continue his career in Philadelphia or hang up the cleats after the 2017 season.

The Eagles will have to replace the nine-time Pro Bowler who was tasked with protecting Wentz. That’s a scary thought for a 6-1 team that doesn’t want anything to derail its momentum.

We may have seen the last of Palmer on the gridiron, and it ended in, of all places, a rugby field in southwest London. The veteran quarterback left Sunday’s game against the Rams with a broken arm, and the ensuing surgery will keep him out for eight weeks and possibly longer.

That’s a bad sign for a veteran quarterback who had weighed the pros and cons of retirement this offseason. Palmer had one of the finest seasons of his career in 2015, but a lackluster 2016 seemed to mark the end of his run as a top quarterback. Diminishing returns before Sunday’s loss to Los Angeles seemed to confirm this; while the soon-to-be 38-year-old had his moments, he wasn’t the same player who pushed Arizona to the NFC title game two seasons prior.

Instead, the Cardinals will have to turn to Drew Stanton to lead the second half of their season, and that’s not something to be optimistic about. The 33-year-old Stanton completed less than 36 percent of his passes Sunday.

“That’s a real gut punch,” wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald said quietly, after the Cardinals were shut out, 33-0. “To lose your best offensive player, your quarterback, there’s no positive way to sum it up. You say you have to go forward, but it’s a tough pill to swallow.”

The question now is if Fitzgerald and his quarterback will come back for one last shot at playoff glory, or if we’ve seen the last of Palmer on an NFL field.

Peterson shook off 18 months of poor play and proved himself right in Week 6 after carving up the Buccaneers for 134 rushing yards and two touchdowns. All the fantasy owners who jumped back on his bandwagon are quietly hitting the “drop player” button after his one-game hype train derailed in Twickenham. The future Hall of Famer was limited to just 21 yards on 11 carries as Arizona was forced to pass the ball more and more in a blowout loss.

It’s a return to recent form for Peterson, who had averaged just 2.4 yards per carry in 2016 and 2017 before his trade to the Cardinals. The veteran tailback looked like he was nearing the end of his career before last week’s oasis in the middle of a low-yield desert.

The good news is he’ll see plenty of touches now that Palmer is out and Arizona will lean on its running game in his absence. The bad news is last week’s explosion looks more and more like an aberration against the backdrop of his other 2017 performances.

The Colts are bad. Their offense can’t score on anyone. The defense gives up more points than any team in the league. Andrew Luck may be lost forever in rehab purgatory.

And now they’ll be without their standout first-round pick, safety Malik Hooker, for the rest of the season. The former Ohio State star quickly developed into a reliable center fielder for Indianapolis, hauling in three interceptions in his first six games. On Sunday, he tweaked his knee trying to bring down Allen Hurns. Later that evening, he was declared out for the season.

Cutler has been an easy target for criticism this fall (and his NFL career in general), but he’s been the man at the helm as the Dolphins have ground their way to a 4-2 start. That fourth win, however, may mark his last start with Miami. The veteran passer was off to a solid start against the Jets before a big hit knocked him from the game in the third quarter; two battered ribs prevented him from following up on his most accurate and efficient performance of the year.

Fortunately, the Dolphins had a replacement of equal talent waiting in the wings. Matt Moore led Miami back from a 28-14 deficit for a 31-28 victory, thanks in part to a regrettable last-minute interception from Josh McCown. Typically losing your starting quarterback would sting much worse, but Moore has proved time and again to be an above-average Plan B.

With Cutler failing to impress in his first seven games, south Florida could play host to an entirely uninspiring quarterback battle come December.