Eagles RB Corey Clement To Miss Time
Eagles running back Corey Clement is expected to miss time with a knee injury, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears. That would help to explain Monday’s signing of Boston Scott, who was previously on the Saints’ practice squad. 
Injuries have hit the Eagles hard this year, particularly at the running back position – standout Jay Ajayi was lost to an ACL tear in October and veteran Darren Sproles missed Weeks 2-12 with a hamstring injury. In their stead, Clement took on a bigger role in the backfield and ran for 259 yards off of 68 carries, resulting in a so-so 3.8 yards per carry average.
It’s unclear whether an IR trip is in Clement’s future. For however long he’s out, the Eagles’ RB depth chart will consist of Darren Sproles, Josh Adams, Wendell Smallwood, and Scott.
The NFC East ship has pretty much sailed, but the defending champs presently have an 18% chance of making the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight.com. A win against the Rams on Sunday night would go a long way towards improving their Wild Card odds, but they’ll be behind the 8-ball if they lose.
Chargers To Be Without Gordon, Ekeler?
With a win over the Chiefs on Thursday night, the Chargers can take a step closer towards winning the AFC West title. Unfortunately, it sounds like they’ll go into the game without their two best running backs. 
The Chargers are not optimistic that Melvin Gordon (knee) and Austin Ekeler (neck, concussion) will be ready for this weeks’ game, head coach Anthony Lynn tells Steve Wyche of NFL.com (on Twitter). Instead, the Chargers are planning to use rookie running backs Justin Jackson and Detrez Newsome in the backfield.
Gordon has been sidelined since sustaining a grade 2 MCL sprain in Los Angeles’ Week 12 matchup with Arizona. Since then, Jackson has been a bit of a mixed bag for the Chargers. He averaged eight yards per carry in Weeks 12 and 13, but had just 12 yards off of seven carries in Sunday’s win over the Bengals. Newsome, meanwhile, has not touched the ball in the last two games.
If the Chiefs beat the Chargers on Thursday, they’ll clinch the AFC West title, allowing them to rest their best players over the final two weeks of the season. Even in that scenario, the Chargers are all virtually assured a place in the postseason.
Bills LB Matt Milano Done For Year
Bills linebacker Matt Milano is done for the year, according to head coach head coach Sean McDermott. Milano had surgery for a broken fibula on Monday, which will rule him out for the rest of the regular season and land him on injured reserve. 
Milano, 24, has been a staple of the Bills’ D since entering the league as a fifth-round pick in 2017. This year, he recorded his first sack in a huge upset win over the Vikings and came away with AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors for his performance.
Without Milano, the Bills will likely promote Deon Lacey to the starting lineup, putting him alongside middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and strong side linebacker Lorenzo Alexander. It’s a thin unit after that, so the Bills are likely to add another LB this week.
The Bills came out of Sunday’s loss to the Jets with a score of injuries, including day-to-day injuries for running backs LeSean McCoy (hamstring) and Chris Ivory (shoulder).
Latest On Raiders, Reggie McKenzie
On Monday afternoon, the Raiders released a statement to confirm the firing of longtime GM Reggie McKenzie.
“We are grateful for everything Reggie has done for this organization as a player, executive and member of the Raider family,” the statement read. “The Raiders will immediately begin a search for a new front office executive.”
Curiously, the statement indicates that the Raiders will look “for a new front office executive,” which may mean that the club will not give anyone the title of GM for 2019.
Here’s the latest out of Oakland:
- Those in the building say that Gruden actually liked McKenzie, even as Gruden picked apart the roster that he built, Albert Breer of The MMQB tweets. Things weren’t outwardly contentious between the two men, Breer hears, and he notes that McKenzie’s decision to set high asking prices for Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper actually paid off. Before each deal, there was speculation that McKenzie was looking to sandbag the efforts, but that does not appear to be the case in retrospect.
- The Raiders may view executives such as Jimmy Raye III, Mark Dominik, and Chris Polian as candidates to become the new GM or chief of personnel, according to Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter). And, despite previous rumors linking Redskins exec Bruce Allen to the post, Pelissero hears that Allen is not “on the front burner” for the Raiders at this time.
Broncos Promote Trey Marshall
The Broncos will waive safety Shamarko Thomas in order to promote rookie safety Trey Marshall from the practice squad, league sources tell Mike Klis of 9News (on Twitter). While the Broncos value Thomas’ special teams acumen, they were compelled to make the move in order to prevent the Cardinals from signing Marshall off of the taxi squad. 
The Cardinals wound up with an open roster spot on Monday when they were forced to place defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche on injured reserve. Marshall won’t turn 23 until February and would have been worth a look for Arizona’s 2019 roster, but the Broncos stepped in to prevent that from happening. He’ll now have a chance to make his NFL debut with Denver after compiling 135 tackles, one sack, and six passes defensed while at Florida State.
Thomas, a fourth-round pick of the Steelers in 2013, will become a free agent if he is not claimed on waivers. He appeared in six games for Denver this year and recorded seven total tackles.
The Broncos are 6-7 after Sunday’s loss to the 49ers, but they technically still have a shot at reaching the playoffs as a Wild Card team.
Cardinals To Place Robert Nkemdiche On IR
Cardinals defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche is going on IR, coach Steve Wilks announced on Monday. Wilks declined to give details on the injury, but he did say that Nkemdiche will require surgery. 
[RELATED: Cardinals Place D.J. Humphries On IR]
Nkemdiche, 24, was a first round pick of the Cardinals back in 2016. His bruising physique had the team excited back then, but he has been unable to put it all together as a pro. Injuries have kept him off the field for much of his three-year career and he’ll end this campaign with just 27 appearances out of a possible 48 games.
Nkemdiche recorded 4.5 sacks this year – including 2.5 agains the Chargers a few weeks ago – but his run defense has left much to be desired. Nkemdiche currently ranks as Pro Football Focus’ No. 102 ranked interior defender out of 118 qualified players.
The Cardinals will have Nkemdiche under contract for 2019 and they’ll have to decide on his fifth-year option for 2020 in May. Last year, the option cost for non Top-10 defensive tackles was $7.154MM. The cost will rise this year, and the Cardinals will have to think long and hard about whether they’re willing to roll the dice on Nkemdiche given his injury history.
Raiders Fire GM Reggie McKenzie
The Raiders have parted ways with GM Reggie McKenzie, according to Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL.com (on Twitter). McKenzie was given the chance to stay on board for the rest of the season, but it sounds like he’ll leave his post immediately. 
Rumors have circulated about McKenzie’s job security since the hiring of Jon Gruden in the offseason. The talk has picked up in recent weeks, though Gruden did his best to throw water on the fire when speaking to reporters on Sunday.
“I don’t have any comment on that,” Gruden said (Twitter link via Michael Gehlken of the Review-Journal). “We’re going to build this team back. I know that. We’re going to bring the Raiders back.”
At the time of Gruden’s hiring, owner Mark Davis insisted the two men would work in concert. That’s not how things played out. Gruden, who had control over the 53-man roster, brought in his own scouting staff including Dave Razzano, the club’s “Director of Football Research.”
McKenzie, a former NFL linebacker, worked for the Packers’ front office from 1994 through 2012. After that, he was hired as the Raiders’ GM, inheriting a team with an awful cap situation and depleted draft capital. McKenzie was not perfect, but he did manage to turn that club into a playoff team. Now that he’s on the open market, one can’t help but wonder if a return to the Packers is in the cards.
With Gruden and his own group of hand-picked advisors at the helm, the Raiders overhauled their roster this offseason, including the controversial trade of Khalil Mack to the Bears. The Raiders have lots of picks in the 2019 draft, but they don’t have a lot of 2018 wins after Gruden targeted over-the-hill free agents and benched many of them in favor of younger players.
On Sunday, the Raiders upset the Steelers (thanks in large part to Chris Boswell‘s slip) and improved to 3-10 on the year. If the season ended today, the Raiders would pick third and twice more in the first round (No. 25, 26) thanks to the trades of Mack and Amari Cooper.
Current 2019 NFL Draft Order
With almost 14 full weeks of the NFL season in the books, the 2019 draft order is beginning to take shape. Here’s the rundown of where things would stand if the 2018 season ended today:
1. San Francisco 49ers (3-10)
2. Arizona Cardinals (3-10)
3. Oakland Raiders (3-10)
4. Atlanta Falcons (4-9)
5. New York Jets (4-9)
6. Buffalo Bills (4-9)
7. Jacksonville Jaguars (4-9)
8. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-8)
9. New York Giants (5-8)
10. Detroit Lions (5-8)
11. Cincinnati Bengals (5-8)
12. Green Bay Packers (5-7-1)
13. Cleveland Browns (5-7-1)
14. Washington Redskins (6-7)
15. Carolina Panthers (6-7)
16. Philadelphia Eagles (6-7)
17. Denver Broncos (6-7)
18. Miami Dolphins (7-6)
19. Indianapolis Colts (7-6)
20. Tennessee Titans (7-6)
Chiefs CEO On Release Of Kareem Hunt
Speaking for the first time publicly on the release of Kareem Hunt, Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt admitted the team knew about all three of the running back’s offseason incidents (via Brooke Pryor of the Kansas City Star). The CEO also hinted that the organization was instructed by the NFL to allow the league office to handle the investigation. 
“We did know about that, yes, we were familiar with all three of the incidents that he had had in the offseason,” said Clark Hunt. “They’d all been reported to the NFL, and the NFL was investigating them.”
At the start of the season, two known offseason incidents involving the running back were known – an altercation at a Kansas City nightclub and the ugly hotel brawl in February. The Chiefs have been long aware that Hunt also allegedly punched a man in the face in June, even though that did not surface publicly until earlier this month. Of course, the Chiefs say they did not see the footage of the hotel incident until it was leaked on Nov. 30, which is why Hunt was on the roster until that fateful day.
“I don’t think we were necessarily trying to make a statement, we just felt that the best thing for the Kansas City Chiefs moving forward was for us to part ways with Kareem,” Clark Hunt said. “We were obviously shocked by the video, like anybody who saw it, and we’d had some issues with Kareem not being truthful with what happened that night, and we just really felt for everybody’s best interests we needed to head in a different direction.”
Now a free agent, Kareem Hunt is undergoing counseling for anger management and alcohol use and attending women’s group sessions. It’s unlikely that Hunt will be signed until he is formally suspended by the NFL, but several teams have already reached out to him and will continue to monitor his progress. Ray Rice was not given a second chance in the NFL after video of his assault made international headlines, but league sources expect him to suit up in 2019, according to Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com.
Cowboys Deny Trying To Pull Jason Witten Out Of Retirement
According to Jason Witten‘s ESPN coworker Adam Schefter, the Cowboys tried to pull the tight end out of retirement multiple times this year. However, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says that’s not true. 
“That’s just not correct, period,” Jones said (via Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas Morning News) after the game. “He misses competing, but he’s got his head down and hands in the dirt, doing the job on ‘Monday Night Football’.”
Of course, no one could blame the Cowboys if they did try to keep one of the most reliable and durable tight ends in the game, especially after an offseason that left them without a true No. 1 wide receiver. But, Jones says it’s not true, and at this point, the Cowboys appear to be doing okay without Witten. The tight ends filling in for Witten came through on Sunday, including Blake Jarwin who had a seven-catch, 56-yard performance against the Eagles. The Cowboys’ offense has also improved greatly since trading for wide receiver Amari Cooper, who caught yesterday’s game-winning TD.
Witten piled up 11 Pro Bowl nods and two First Team All-Pro selections over the course of his career, spent entirely with the Cowboys. Even if head coach Jason Garrett never tried to pull Witten out of the booth, it’s hard to imagine that they’d say no if the 36-year-old had a change of heart.