Moss was ruled out of Week 5 against the Chargers but has a chance to play Week 6 against the Seahawks with back-to-back limited practice listings. Meanwhile, S Talanoa Hufanga (ankle) was a DNP for the second straight day. With Patrick Surtain (ankle) still out in the short term, the Broncos’ banged-up secondary may have a tough time against Jaxon Smith-Njigba and company on Thursday.
With Trey Lance hitting injured reserve, the Chargers worked out multiple quarterbacks Tuesday, eventually signing Browning. A former backup to Joe Burrow, Browning lost the Buccaneers’ backup job to Jalon Daniels this offseason. He now joins a Chargers team keen on adding some depth behind Justin Herbert with Lance out and DJ Uiagalelei on the 53-man roster.
Pitre suffered a left shoulder injury in Week 5, now revealed to be an AC joint sprain. The good news is he won’t require surgery or go on injured reserve, but the 27-year-old is considered “week-to-week.” Given the designation, Pitre seems unlikely to play Week 6 against the Jaguars.
Smith-Njigba gets a second-straight “limited” practice designation. The Seahawks have technically not practiced yet this week but it is notably the 24-year-old receiver gets back-to-back limited designations. With a Thursday matchup against the Broncos on the horizon for Week 6, the Seahawks are leaving the door open for Smith-Njigba to play; he battled the ankle injury in Week 5 and the short week makes this a tougher evaluation. For now, we still expect Smith-Njigba to play against the Broncos on Thursday.
Smith-Schuster is touring wide receiver-needy teams, working out with the Chargers Monday after visiting the Vikings on Monday. Several other names also worked out for the Chargers, including former 49ers WR Ronnie Bell and quarterbacks Kyle Trask and Jake Browning. With Trey Lance on injured reserve and several Chargers receivers dealing with injuries, the Chargers are looking for reinforcements.
Turner tore his ACL last October. He’ll likely work in a rotational role for the Bears early. The 23-year-old second-rounder will try to make up for lost time after spending all of camp and the first month of the season on the shelf.
It appears that Kellen Moore and GM Mickey Loomis are on the hot seat after a surprisingly bad start and a no-show on the 20th anniversary of the return to the dome. We’d be a little surprised if Moore were fired in only the second year of his tenure, without even being given a chance to pick his own franchise quarterback. But most ownership groups would not say something like this out loud, so it’s worth noting.
Assuming there’s not an appeal, Sweat will miss Week 6 and Week 7. Sweat has two sacks in five appearances so far this season.
It’s the second time he’s back; Haskins is a depth piece for the Patriots as they try to compensate for TreVeyon Henderson’s injury. Corey Kiner appears to be first up for a role behind Rhamondre Stevenson.
“At some point, there has to be consequences,” Brady said about his lead back, who has fumbled four times in five games this season, including twice on Monday night. Cook has played 67.3 percent of the team’s snaps, and this probably isn’t a threat to his lead back status, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he sat on the bench for a spell if he fumbled in Week 6.
It’s unclear when he picked this injury up, but it does make the Audric Estime signing make some more sense. Sanders will miss at least four games. Assuming Quinshon Judkins (ankle) is good to go for Week 5, Jaleel McLaughlin and Estime will back him up.
The 26-year-old had four catches on 12 targets this year for the Texans as part of Nick Caley’s weird wideout platoon system. He’ll be tasked with watching Malik Willis throws land somewhere in his general vicinity for the next 11 weeks.
Jackson, notably, was not suspended before the season despite his domestic violence charge. We’ll likely see an appeal here. David Quessenberry would likely be the next man up for the Rams at tackle.
Pitcher suggested that when they run the ball more from shotgun — as they did last week against the Dolphins — Perine’s a better fit for those kinds of plays. The Bengals spent a lot of time this offseason working on an under center run game to get Brown more explosives, but that has gone for naught early on in the season. We may indeed see more Perine in Cincinnati’s running game after they return from the bye week, lowering Brown into the RB2 range.
The Eagles defense is one of the better units in the NFL, but it has been quite banged up of late and losing Hunt here is not ideal. We’ll see if they can blot out Bryce Young’s strong start with the Panthers in Week 6.
Jennings has been a major disappointment in Minnesota, falling behind Tai Felton on the depth chart. A small stakes trade could make sense for the 49ers, who are down to hoping Brandin Cooks can provide for Brock Purdy in a major rash of injuries.
He’ll replace Robert Henry, who signed to Seattle’s active roster, as Washington’s practice squad back.
He’ll apparently get a 53-man roster spot after some roster machinations over the next few days. Demercado has lost the backup job to Tyler Goodson and doesn’t need to factor into any fantasy calculations at this time.
Coker was spotted practicing on Tuesday (there will be no injury report for this one) and seems like he’s well on track to return. He’ll be a fringe WR2/WR3 against the Eagles in Week 6.
We, too, would like to simply be given valuable things for no reason. Jeudy has fallen off the fantasy map enough that we’re now simply blurbing trade possibilities for him. The 27-year-old’s only real fantasy value at this point is hoping he gets traded somewhere where he can get involved again.
Going 5-for-9 on the season will get you replaced in the modern NFL, as Thiccer Kicker Harrison Mevis is learning. It’s not totally fair, one of those was blocked, but clearly the Rams were not happy with how things were trending. Grupe is a worthwhile pickup in leagues that still use kickers. He went 11-for-11 for the Colts last year after being released by the Saints at midseason.
Mevis, I told you six times before, you don’t work here no more. The Thiccer Kicker hit 12-of-13 for the Rams after coming in late last season and 39-of-39 extra points. He doesn’t quite have the distance of some of the league’s best kickers, but we expect him to continue to get chances at 24.
Campbell went down with what looked like a serious injury in the first half of New England’s win over the Raiders. He did not return to action. Campbell, per Pelissero, will be “week to week” headed into Week 6. The Patriots will likely be without him this weekend against the Jets.
McConkey was active last week but an emergency-only player and played zero snaps. With the Chargers having a Week 7 bye, we’d be surprised if they pushed McConkey to play unless they really needed him. Unfortunately, since he was already active last week, we know that they may really need him. His status is up in the air ahead of Week 6.
“We’ll see where he’s at the end of the week,” Harbaugh added. Johnston practiced on both Thursday and Friday so he likely has the best chance of being active among Los Angeles’ main three wideouts. Unfortunately this passing game is in rough shape, and even a higher volume, healthy load probably wouldn’t get Johnston above the FLEX line.