Grant DuBose

NFL Injury Updates: Fashanu, Dolphins, Beck

By Ely Allen | at December 24, 2024 9:48 am

The Jets will be without rookie swing tackle Olu Fashanu for the remainder of the season, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. The 2024 first-round pick suffered a foot injury in Sunday’s loss to the Rams and was taken on a cart directly to the locker room, forgoing the blue medical tent. According to Ryan Dunleavy of New York Post Sports, Fashanu was seen on crutches after the game as his camp declined interviews.

Fashanu was taken with the Jets’ first overall pick last year, following a trade one spot back so that Minnesota could take Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy. He was the third offensive tackle taken in the draft, behind Notre Dame’s Joe Alt and Alabama’s JC Latham, both of whom have been full-time starters for the Chargers and Titans, respectively, as rookies.

Fashanu was drafted to be an offensive tackle for the future in New York after the team signed two 33-year-old veteran tackles in free agency. It didn’t take long for the future to come as injuries to the Jets’ aging bookends opened the door to playing time for Fashanu. A knee injury to Morgan Moses in Weeks 4 and 5 allowed Fashanu to make his first two starts at right tackle after playing mostly special teams in his first three games. Then, in Week 11, left tackle Tyron Smith was placed on injured reserve with a neck injury, and Fashanu has started on the blindside ever since.

The 22-year-old still has some developing to do, he ranked 61st of 79 graded offensive tackles this season, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), but the starting experience was good for him to get. New York doesn’t have a third left tackle listed on their depth chart, but depth right tackle Max Mitchell, a fourth-round pick from two years ago, filled in for Fashanu after the injury. Mitchell had 12 starts in 20 appearances over his first two years and will likely earn his first start of this season next week.

Here are a few other injury updates from the NFL world:

• The Dolphins have had to get creative at long snapper this season, employing Zach Triner, Matt Overton, and Jake McQuaide at different points of the season in the absence of Blake Ferguson. Ferguson, the team’s primary long snapper since 2020, played in the first five games of the season before being placed on the reserve/non-football injury list in October. The team has released no information on what’s going on with Ferguson, and special teams coordinator Danny Crossman claimed it would be “illegal” to reveal what he’s going through, per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Whatever it is, Crossman says he hopes it will put Ferguson’s mind at rest that he will not be snapping for the remainder of the season. McQuaide, signed to the practice squad eight days ago and the active roster a day later, will be filling in for the remainder of the year.
• Additionally in Miami, head coach Mike McDaniel said that wide receiver Grant DuBose is “in good spirits” following the head injury that hospitalized him in the team’s Week 15 trip to Houston, per ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques. DuBose was placed on IR two days later, but McDaniel confirmed that he would not be playing again this year.
• This isn’t quite yet injury news for the NFL, though it will affect the subject’s stock in the 2025 NFL Draft. Georgia quarterback Carson Beck underwent successful surgery on his UCL yesterday. According to Field Yates at ESPN, he is expected to begin throwing again in the spring, which makes it sound as if he’ll miss most, if not all, pre-draft activities.