Daniel Jones To Miss Time?
The Giants are in the lead in the NFC East thanks to a tiebreaker over Washington, but they picked up a big injury during Sunday’s win over the Bengals when starting quarterback Daniel Jones went down.
Jones has a hamstring injury that is believed to be “pretty bad,” a source told Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. Raanan adds that it could force him to miss some time, and if it’s actually “pretty bad,” that would almost certainly be the case. Jones will go for an MRI on Monday that will tell the full story. A hamstring injury is especially tough for Jones since his mobility is a huge part of his game.
The Giants have frequently used his legs to help spark the offense this season, and he already has 403 rushing yards on the year. He’s been active as a runner in pretty much every game, and his passing numbers would likely look a lot worse if he didn’t have that scrambling ability. The second-year pro struggled mightily early in the year but had been a bit better recently, with no interceptions in his past three games.
The sixth overall pick of the 2019 draft has eight touchdowns and nine picks through the air. If he has to miss any games, Colt McCoy will take over as the starter. He’s in his first year with the team and doesn’t have much of a relationship with OC Jason Garrett, so things could get rough. New York has a tough schedule coming up, including a trip to Seattle to take on the Seahawks next week. We’ll keep you posted once we hear more on the situation.
Jaguars Fire GM Dave Caldwell
After another loss dropped them to 1-10, the Jaguars are making a major shakeup. Jacksonville has fired general manager Dave Caldwell, sources told Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
It looked for a while like the Jags were just going to ride out this lost season before making any big changes, but obviously owner Shad Khan felt like he couldn’t wait any longer. Just about everybody has assumed head coach Doug Marrone is a lame-duck coach waiting to get fired at the end of the season, so it’s interesting he wasn’t let go here at the same time like we saw with Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn yesterday. It’s the end of a long run for Caldwell, as he was in his eighth season with the team.
Caldwell broke into the league as a scouting assistant with the Panthers in 1996, then spent ten years as a scout with the Colts. From there he moved on to the Falcons, becoming their director of player personnel in 2012. After just one year in that role, he was poached away to lead Jacksonville’s front office. Khan released a statement politely thanking Caldwell for his time with the team but acknowledging the need for new leadership, which you can read in full via this tweet from Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. Rapsheet also notes that Trent Baalke will take over as interim GM for the rest of the season.
Baalke spent six seasons as the 49ers’ GM from 2011-16 before becoming the Jags’ personnel director back in February. Atlanta, Detroit, and Houston had already fired their GMs in-season, leaving a number of front office head openings around the league.
Caldwell certainly had an interesting tenure with the team. After his hire of Gus Bradley and drafting of Blake Bortles didn’t work out, he was essentially demoted as the team hired Tom Coughlin to run its football ops. Then after a pretty disastrous run which saw most of the star talent get traded away, like Jalen Ramsey, Coughlin himself was fired and Caldwell re-emerged with more power.
Jacksonville was never going to win anything this year with their stripped down roster, and it’s likely Khan was planning for a full-blown house cleaning for 2021 all along. Meanwhile Rapoport tweets that Khan told Marrone after the game he and the rest of his staff are safe through the rest of the season. Caldwell deserves a lot of criticism, but he’ll leave the next GM with an enviable bounty of draft picks.
The Jags had two first-rounders this past April, and they’ll have two picks in the first and second rounds in 2021. They’re entering yet another rebuild, but there could be some light at the end of the tunnel. Priority number one for the new regime will be finding a franchise quarterback, as the current trio of Gardner Minshew, Jake Luton, and Mike Glennon obviously aren’t cutting it.
Texans Place Randall Cobb On IR
The Texans picked up their third win of the season by beating the Patriots, but they picked up a couple of key injuries along the way. We just heard starting defensive tackle P.J. Hall is done for the year, and now Randall Cobb will be hitting the shelf.
The veteran receiver has a toe injury that is considered “significant,” a source told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link). The Texans have since placed Cobb on IR.
Fellow receiver Kenny Stills picked up a quad injury on Sunday, and although we don’t know the severity on that one yet, it’s possible their offense is significantly shorthanded for their Thanksgiving trip to take on the Lions.
It’s a tough blow, as Cobb has been playing a big role in his first season in Houston. Through ten games he has 38 receptions for 441 yards and three touchdowns. He inked a three-year pact worth an impressive $27MM back in March. He turned 30 back in August, but outside of seven missed games in 2018 has mostly been pretty durable.
NFL To Rescind K’Waun Williams’ Ban
Nov. 25: The NFL has reversed course in this case. The 49ers slot corner will not face a two-game ban. Issues with the testing procedures induced the league to backtrack on Williams’ suspension, according to Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). Williams has insisted he has not used a banned substance.
Nov. 24: We’ve got another two-game suspension to report on the heels of Luke Gifford getting the same ban. This time it’s 49ers cornerback K’Waun Williams getting hit for violating the league’s policy on PEDs.
Fortunately for San Francisco Williams is already sidelined with a high ankle sprain and wasn’t likely to play before this suspension will be up anyway. He’ll be eligible to return for the team’s Week 14 game against Washington. Williams is the team’s nickel corner who lines up in the slot. He started the year off playing a little over half of the team’s defensive snaps, but then was sidelined with a knee sprain in Week 4.
He returned in Week 8, but went down with the ankle sprain the following game. He was quite productive last year, finishing with 51 tackles, two interceptions, a sack, and four forced fumbles in 15 games and eight starts. The Pittsburgh product entered the league as an UDFA with the Browns in 2014.
He quickly became a key contributor in Cleveland but was waived after the 2015 season following a dispute with the team over an injury he had at the time. After sitting out 2016 with that injury he signed with San Francisco the following year. His strong play earned him a three-year extension worth $10MM that is set to expire at the end of this season. He’ll be a free agent this offseason and due to the high marks he received last year, he’s likely in for a raise.
Minor NFL Transactions: 11/24/20
We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:
Arizona Cardinals
- Placed on reserve/COVID-19 list: S Deionte Thompson
Baltimore Ravens
- Placed on reserve/COVID-19 list: OLB Pernell McPhee
Buffalo Bills
- Activated from reserve/COVID-19 list: CB Josh Norman
Chicago Bears
- Waived: DT Anthony Rush
Cleveland Browns
- Placed on reserve/COVID-19 list: DE Joe Jackson
Denver Broncos
- Activated from IR: RB LeVante Bellamy
- Waived: T Jake Rodgers
Jacksonville Jaguars
- Signed off Cardinals’ practice squad: LB Reggie Gilbert
- Promoted: RB Nathan Cottrell
- Placed on reserve/COVID-19 list: K Chase McLaughlin
- Placed on IR: CB D.J. Hayden, S Daniel Thomas
Kansas City Chiefs
- Placed on IR: WR Byron Pringle
Los Angeles Rams
- Claimed off waivers from Patriots: DE Derek Rivers
New Orleans Saints
- Waived: LB Chase Hansen
New York Jets
- Promoted: RB Josh Adams
Pittsburgh Steelers
- Activated from reserve/COVID-19 list: TE Vance McDonald
- Promoted: TE Kevin Rader
Tennessee Titans
- Placed on IR: T Ty Sambrailo
- Waived: P Trevor Daniel, CB Greg Mabin
The Jets’ addition of Adams makes a lot of sense after rookie running back La’Mical Perine suffered a high ankle sprain that is expected to sideline him for at least a couple games. A 2018 UDFA out of Notre Dame, Adams played a significant role with the Eagles as a rookie, when he started five of 14 games and carries the ball 120 times for 511 yards and three touchdowns. Despite the reasonably productive first season, he was waived at final cuts last year.
Jets Place K Sam Ficken, RB La’Mical Perine On IR
The Jets are sending a couple of important players to injured reserve, they announced Tuesday. Kicker Sam Ficken and running back La’Mical Perine will both be hitting the shelf for at least the next three games.
Ficken opened the year as the team’s kicker but got hurt during Week 6 and missed the next handful of games. He just returned this past week but seems to have rushed himself back, as he missed two of his four extra point attempts against the Chargers and apparently re-aggravated his groin injury. Sergio Castillo, who filled in recently, will now take over the kicking duties once again. Ficken is a Penn State product who spent parts of 2017-18 with the Rams before landing the Jets’ job last season.
Perine is a promising rookie who many Jets fans were hoping would blossom into the running back of the future after the Le’Veon Bell saga. He suffered a high ankle sprain against Los Angeles that will knock him out, but hopefully the fourth-rounder from Florida will be able to return for the last couple games to make his case.
For now ageless wonder Frank Gore will take on an even more prominent role, and the team already signed former Eagles running back Josh Adams off the practice squad to replace Perine. They also announced they were signing tight end Ross Travis off the practice squad to take Ficken’s place.
Cowboys LB Luke Gifford Suspended Two Games
A minor suspension to pass along, as the league announced Tuesday that Cowboys reserve linebacker Luke Gifford had been hit with a two-game ban.
The suspension comes for violating the league’s PED policy. It won’t have a massive impact on Dallas, since Gifford doesn’t play much at all on defense. He’s mostly appeared on special teams for the six games he’s been active so far this season. He’ll be eligible to return for their Week 13 game against the Bengals.
An UDFA from Nebraska, Gifford signed with the Cowboys as a rookie in 2019 and cracked the opening roster. He was on the 53 pretty much the whole season but was often a healthy scratch, appearing in only six games then as well.
AFC Notes: Jets, Chargers, Ekeler, Bengals, Waynes
Another week, more drama with the Jets. While tanking is often talked about in the NFL in terms of roster construction and letting young guys play, it’s very rare for a team to be accused of actively trying to lose games. But that’s exactly what’s happening in New York, Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News writes. The latest dustup surrounds starting cornerback Bless Austin, and a neck injury that just landed him on injured reserve. Head coach Adam Gase had previously expressed optimism that Austin would play this past Sunday, then suddenly pivoted and said the team’s doctors told him Austin didn’t feel good.
Mehta writes that Jets employees “vehemently disagreed with the head coach’s characterization of the situation.” He reports that Austin told teammates the neck issue would only require a couple of days of rest, and that the medical staff shared that opinion. After that, “people at all levels of the organization have started to wonder whether Jets brass actually care about winning any of their remaining games.” Mehta says some within the building have concluded “the powers that be want to tank for Trevor Lawrence.” The Jets just cut starting cornerback Pierre Desir and placed fellow corner Brian Poole on injured reserve, making Austin’s absence all the more significant in their now extremely young secondary. It’s not unusual for a team to strip down its roster of veterans, but it would be unusual for a team to purposely sideline a healthy player in order to field a less competitive product. This will be an interesting situation to keep an eye on as the season winds down.
Here’s more from a couple of the AFC’s other divisions:
- The Chargers are in the midst of yet another injury-plagued season, but reinforcements may be on the way. The team will designate star running back Austin Ekeler to return from injured reserve and he’ll practice this week, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network tweets. Pelissero adds that it’s not clear yet if he’ll be able to be active for this weekend’s game against the Bills, but either way it sounds like he’ll be back on the field very soon. He’s been one of the league’s most productive running backs the past two years, both as a runner and receiver. Ekeler hasn’t played since Week 4 due to a serious hamstring injury he suffered against the Buccaneers. He was averaging over five yards per carry with 17 receptions through only a little over three games.
- While Ekeler will be back any week now, things are a lot less certain for Bengals cornerback Trae Waynes. Waynes signed a three-year, $42MM deal with Cincy this offseason, but hasn’t played in a game yet after tearing a pec in August. Waynes finally popped up on the rehab field at a Bengals practice this past week, Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic writes, but a return this season is still in question. “Still unsure at this point, honestly,” Waynes said. “I’m trying to work as hard and as fast and as smart as I can to get back out there without risk of jeopardizing my body to another injury. Unfortunately, it’s not up to me to decide if I can get cleared. So, I’m just doing my part to make that happen as soon as possible.” Waynes expressed frustration with what looks like a lost year, adding that the COVID-19 restrictions have made it hard for him to get acclimated to his new team without being able to practice or play. “Very frustrating, boring,” the former first-round pick of the Vikings said. “I’m not used to it. It’s my first major injury through college and the NFL. I’m not used to just sitting out the whole season and doing absolutely nothing but rehabbing.”
- In case you missed it, crucial Titans linebacker Jayon Brown is out for the season.
Bills’ Tommy Sweeney Done For The Year Due To COVID-19 Complications
We unfortunately have at least our second case of a player’s season being ended due to COVID-19 complications. Bills tight end Tommy Sweeney is the latest, Buffalo announced.
Sweeney has developed myocarditis, a heart condition which is not uncommon with COVID-19 infections. It’s an inflammation of the heart, and is one of the main concerns with athletes getting the virus. Jaguars running back Ryquell Armstead had to be hospitalized twice and was enduring major symptoms before he was ultimately ruled out for the season last month. Fortunately most diagnoses for NFL players have meant an absence of only a game or two, but there are still the possibility of complications even for elite athletes.
Sweeney was drafted by the Bills in the seventh-round last year. He appeared in six games as a rookie and made one start, catching eight passes for 114 yards. Hopefully the Boston College product and former first-team All-ACC selection is able to make a full recovery in time for 2021.
Extra Points: Watson, Tagovailoa, Prescott
The Houston Texans are at a crossroads as an organization. After surprisingly firing Bill O’Brien toward the beginning of the year they were left without a head coach and GM. Romeo Crennel and Jack Easterby have taken over those roles on an interim basis, but the franchise is currently in a bit of a rut and lacking direction. They’re also without a lot of draft picks, including their first-rounder next April, due to trades O’Brien made. As they look to dig themselves out of that mess, owner Cal McNair is apparently leaving no stone unturned.
McNair recently had dinner with quarterback Deshaun Watson, the one thing the team has going for them at the moment, and he picked his brain about what he’d like to see moving forward, McNair told Adam Schefter of ESPN.com. Schefter writes that “McNair wanted to hear Watson’s thoughts and opinions on who should be the next head coach.” Assuming Watson gets legit input, it would be relatively safe to assume the Texans will target an offensive mind. Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bienemy is sure to be a hot name, although there are plenty of other offensive minds as well.
Here’s more from around the league:
- Tua Tagovailoa‘s honeymoon as the Dolphins’ quarterback came to an end Sunday in a loss to the Broncos. Tagovailoa struggled mightily during the defeat, and was pulled for Ryan Fitzpatrick. Speaking after the game, head coach Brian Flores confirmed Tagovailoa did not have an injury and was benched for performance. That being said, Flores also wasted no time declaring that his rookie will be his starter next week, meaning we’ll have to wait again for our first dose of Fitzmagic. Tagovailoa was 11/20 for only 83 yards before getting pulled during the loss, which snapped Miami’s five-game winning streak. He’ll have a get-right spot against the Jets next week.
- Fortunately, we’ve got another positive update to pass along on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Appearing on the radio Friday, team EVP Stephen Jones said he’s been getting “amazing reports” from doctors on Prescott’s status, via Jon Machota of The Athletic. “Shouldn’t come as any surprise,” Jones said. “He does everything to the nines and the 10s and he just does it the very best. He’s been so diligent in his rehab and that shouldn’t surprise anybody. They said if anything he’s ahead of schedule and rolling. That should come as no surprise. So we expect him to have a full recovery.” Jones also reiterated that Prescott avoided any infections, which can sometimes occur with compound fractures. Everything continues to look good for Prescott’s chances of being ready for Week 1 of 2021.
- Let’s wrap things up with some punter news. Veteran specialist Jon Ryan has been working out and has drawn interest from teams recently, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network tweets. Ryan is 38 now but clearly has no plans of hanging up his cleats. Pelissero notes he led the CFL in gross punting average last season. He most notably spent ten years as the Seahawks’ punter from 2008-17.