NFL Player News

The shifty pass catcher and change-of-pace player has been a valuable contributor this season. He still has a few days to get back on track for Sunday, but if Johnson were to sit out the Bills’ Wild Card Round game against the Jaguars, it would likely add passing down work to RB James Cook’s workload.

Witherspoon was placed on the reserve/retired list Tuesday, just a few months after initially signing with the Commanders. The 31-year-old entered the league with the 49ers as a 2017 third-rounder. Witherspoon tallied 60 passes defended and 13 interceptions over his career, spending four seasons in San Francisco, two with the Steelers, and the past three seasons with the Rams.

We weren’t expecting a major target share for TeSlaa anyway in this offense, and he makes his living making contested catches, but it’s still a little disappointing that he hasn’t taken more of a step forward from his rookie season so far. TeSlaa is probably only a consideration in deeper leagues at this time.

He missed four training camp practices while dealing with the injury, but it seems that this won’t be a long-term hinderance. He can be drafted with confidence, or at least as much confidence as you can find in backs in a timeshare, in fantasy leagues.

Part of this stems from asking Jaxson Dart to “run a more traditional offense,” meaning more under-center snaps for the second-year pro as opposed to last year’s shotgun-heavy offense that Brian Daboll built while heavily borrowing from the Ole Miss playbook. Another part of it in Duggan’s estimation is that the Giants pass rush has been “dominant” early in training camp. “You can’t even imagine how much there is for a quarterback to operate with, especially in a new offense,” John Harbaugh said. “He’s done an outstanding job.” It’s probably too soon to be overly worried about Dart this year, but he does profile as a risky fantasy pick in Matt Nagy’s new offense.

They also worked out Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Hassan Haskins and Kylin James and settled on Blackshear of the group. Blackshear has been a worthwhile return specialist and may have a chance to handle that role with the Lions.

Describing his style as “decisive and violent,” Boyd believes McGowan is “building his case” to overtake DJ Giddens for the No. 2 role on the Colts depth chart behind Jonathan Taylor. Neither player will have a major role as long as Taylor is healthy, but it wouldn’t be stunning if McGowan won this battle in the preseason.

Justin Herbert said Slater “wanted to get back on the field and was in good spirits afterward.” This probably isn’t anything to be super-concerned about, but it’s possible Slater could miss a little camp time.

“This has been an outstanding start to camp for Lane, a third-round pick from USC who has become the team’s No. 3 wide receiver behind Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman,” writes Hensley. It was expected that Devontez Walker would ascend to the No. 3 receiver role in the offseason, but Lane appears to be pushing for early work in Baltimore. Lane isn’t yet more than a deep-league stab, but with Flowers and Mark Andrews presumably the lead targets in Baltimore, Lane does have some target vacuum runway if he takes hold of a job. He’s one to watch in preseason.

This has been sort of the working assumption for a while as Tagovailoa is taking first-team reps while Michael Penix hasn’t been cleared for full-contact work yet. Tagovalioa remained limited with a back injury today in camp, but obviously if there’s no healthy Penix, there can be no competition.

Wright has been indispensable for the Bears since being selected No. 10 overall in the 2023 draft and will get the most guaranteed money in an offensive lineman contract In NFL History (which means for the next 10 minutes given how often extensions are being reached in the early days of camp) when he signs. The Bears offense appears to be trending towards being a juggernaut and having their stalwart tackle under contract will only help keep the ball rolling.