Atlanta Falcons

Rams wide receiver Davante Adams is on track to miss another game with a hamstring injury.

Adams did not play in Thursday night’s overtime loss to the Seahawks after being listed as doubtful on the team’s final injury report. The Rams have an extended break before facing the Falcons on Monday night in Week 17, but head coach Sean McVay said on Friday that Adams is likely to miss the game.

It remains to be seen what the Rams will be playing for in Week 18, but they’ve clinched a playoff spot and it wouldn’t come as a great surprise if they kept Adams on the shelf until their playoff opener in order to give him as much time as possible to heal.

Right guard Kevin Dotson sprained his ankle on Thursday and McVay indicated he is also likely to miss next week. McVay also said that Dotson’s injury did not occur when Seahawks defensive lineman Derick Hall stomped on his leg during the game, but said, via Stu Jackson of the team’s website, that it is something that “doesn’t belong in our game.” Hall was suspended one game for his actions on Friday.

The Falcons placed wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge on injured reserve with a shoulder injury, the team announced.

Atlanta had already ruled out Hodge for Sunday’s game against the Cardinals after he didn’t practice all week.

Hodge earned Pro Bowl honors last season for his special teams play.

In 12 games this season, Hodge totaled three receptions for 31 yards on offense and nine tackles on special teams.

He played 10 percent of the Falcons’ offensive snaps and 72 percent of the special teams snaps in the games he played this season.

In a corresponding move, the Falcons signed safety Jammie Robinson from the practice squad to the active roster. He has played 57 special teams snaps in three games this season.

Falcons receiver Drake London is potentially going to return for Sunday’s matchup with the Cardinals, though that’s still uncertain.

Atlanta has listed London as questionable for the contest. London has missed the last four games with a knee sprain. He was limited on Wednesday and Thursday before sitting out Friday’s practice.

On Thursday, London told reporters he’s trending toward playing this weekend.

“I want to get back out there quick as possible,” London said, via Tori McElhaney of the team’s website. “But everything is going smoothly. I’ve been making good strides and leaps. That’s all I can ask for.”

London has caught 60 passes for 810 yards with six touchdowns so far in 2025.

Edge rusher James Pearce Jr. (foot) and defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus (illness/shoulder) are also questionable for the Falcons.

Receiver KhaDarel Hodge (shoulder) and cornerback Mike Hughes (ankle) have been ruled out.

While tight end Kyle Pitts was limited on Thursday and Friday with a knee issue, he’s off the injury report and is set to play.

The Cardinals will have to try to end their losing streak without the help of left tackle Paris Johnson.

Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon said on Friday that Johnson has been ruled out for Sunday’s game against the Falcons. Johnson will miss his second straight game with a knee injury.

Gannon also ruled out safety Jalen Thompson for the second straight week. Thompson has a hamstring injury.

The Cardinals, who have lost their last six games, will also play without cornerback Max Melton (heel), left guard Evan Brown (personal), and cornerback Darren Hall (concussion). The full list of injury designations for a game between two teams that have already been eliminated from playoff contention will be released later on Friday.

Falcons receiver Drake London was officially limited in his first practice since Week 11, according to the club’s injury report.

London has been sidelined for the last four games by a PCL sprain.

London has caught 60 passes for 810 yards with six touchdowns so far in 2025.

Falcons running back Bijan Robinson is also on the first injury report of the week, but he was a full participant despite dealing with an illness.

Cornerback Dee Alford was listed the same way, as a full participant on Wednesday despite dealing with an illness.

Receiver KhaDarel Hodge (shoulder), defensive back Mike Hughes (ankle), and edge rusher Leonard Floyd (illness) all did not practice. Quarterback Easton Stick did not practice either, though he was dealing with a personal matter.

With the Dolphins apparently moving on from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the next question becomes where his career will continue.

Plenty of teams will be looking for quarterbacks in the offseason. Tagovailoa has shown that he can operate an offense at a high level, when the play that’s called is there. When the play that’s called is stymied by the defense, things often go haywire.

Former Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard, who spent the early part of the season with the Colts before retiring, said after the Colts blew out the Dolphins in Week 1 that, if the first read is taken away, Tua slips into “panic mode.”

Whatever the label, he freezes. As the defender approaches, he doesn’t throw the ball away. He lacks the agility and speed to run away from the pressure and make something happen, like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and/or Lamar Jackson. The play just disintegrates.

And while the Dolphins have tried, in vain, to coach him toward a solution for a play that goes sideways, another coach may think that he can do what neither Brian Flores nor Mike McDaniel have been able to accomplish in six NFL seasons.

It all comes down to the options available for the teams that will be looking for a veteran quarterback. Those teams currently include, in our assessment, the Jets (he’s 7-0 against them), Steelers, Browns, Raiders, Vikings, Falcons, and Cardinals.

If the Dolphins cut Tua, he can sign with another team for the veteran minimum, like the Steelers did last year with Wilson. It’ll be a low-risk, high-reward option for a team that believes it can get more out of Tua than the Dolphins did.

And if enough teams are interested, perhaps a trade becomes possible. Even if the Dolphins would have to pay a lot of the money Tua is owed next year.

It’s not a crazy thought, even if it won’t be easy to get him to bail on a bad play before the bad play becomes a sack or a fumble or an interception. Given the good things he has shown he can do — good enough to get a $53.1 million per year contract — some team will be willing to give Tua a try.

Last Thursday night, Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins helped power the team to a comeback victory over the Buccaneers.

While things looked shaky at times, Cousins ended up having one of his strongest stat lines since joining the Falcons in 2024. He finished the game 30-of-44 passing for 373 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

Cousins is set to finish the season as Atlanta’s starter, as Michael Penix Jr. underwent reconstructive knee surgery late last month.

Cousins is still under contract with the Falcons through 2027, though he has no more guarantees on his salary after 2026. Should Atlanta need a starter because Penix isn’t ready for the beginning of next season, is Cousins a viable option?

“Everything is on the table,” Falcons head coach Raheem Morris told reporters on Wednesday, via Terrin Waack of the team’s website. “Obviously, we all sit down at the end of the season and we’ll have all those discussions, we’ll talk about all those things. That certainly will be a part of it.

“When we went down the journey of Kirk Cousins, we planned on the amount of years that we put in his contract, and hopefully, we were able to potentially get more. So, we’ll see where that goes and all those types of things. But that’s definitely up for discussion once we get to the end of the season. We know we’ll get Mike back next year. But that’ll definitely be up for discussion.”

The Falcons signed Cousins to a lucrative four-year deal last offseason before drafting Penix at No. 8 overall a month later. Despite playing 14 of 17 games, Cousins finished last season leading the league with 16 interceptions. He completed 66.9 percent of his passes for 3,508 yards with 18 touchdowns.

Morris noted that even as he benched Cousins last year, he never lost belief in the QB.

“Quite honestly, I never though he wasn’t a valuable starting quarterback,” Morris said. “He just didn’t play like that at the end of last year when we needed him to most.”

Cousins is currently in line to have a $57.5 million cap number for 2026 with a $10 million roster bonus due on the fifth day of the league year. We’ll see how the rest of the season and the beginning of the offseason plays out for Cousins’ future with Atlanta.

Help is on the way for Atlanta’s offense.

Receiver Drake London will return to practice on Wednesday as the Falcons start their preparation to face the Cardinals on Sunday. Head coach Raheem Morris told reporters that London is still considered day-to-day with his knee injury.

“Looking forward to seeing how much he’ll be able to give us this week,” Morris said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN.

London has not played since Atlanta’s Nov. 16 overtime loss to Carolina. In nine games this season, London has caught 60 passes for 810 yards with six touchdowns.

Additionally, Morris told reporters that linebacker Troy Andersen, defensive lineman Zach Harrison, and edge rusher Bralen Trice will not return from injury this season with just three games remaining.

Atlanta’s first full injury report of the week is due out later on Wednesday.

Kyle Pitts had the best game of his career last Thursday night and now the league has recognized him for his performance.

Pitts has been named NFC offensive player of the week.

Pitts helped Atlanta to its 29-28 victory over Tampa Bay with 11 receptions for 166 yards with three touchdowns — all of which were single-game career-highs. Pitts is just the fourth tight end all-time to have at least 10 catches, 150 receiving yards, and three touchdowns in one game — joining Shannon Sharpe, Kellen Winslow Sr., and Todd Christensen.

This is Pitts’ first career player of the week award.

In his fifth season — and a pending free agent — Pitts has 73 receptions for 797 yards with four touchdowns in 2025.

From the moment the league office overturned two key fourth-quarter rulings in the Week 14 Steelers-Ravens game, the countdown started for Sunday morning. What would NFL officiating messenger Walt Anderson say, or not say, on NFL Network about the Aaron Rodgers “catch” and the Isaiah Likely “non-catch”?

And, more importantly, would Anderson be given enough time in the four-hour show to address all of the controversial calls from the game, including the unnecessary roughness penalty on a field-goal attempt that the league privately told the Ravens was a mistake?

As to the last question, the answer was no. Despite the importance of the issue to the actual and perceived integrity of the game, Anderson spoke for fewer than two minutes of the 240-minute show, addressing only one of the three very controversial calls from Pittsburgh at Baltimore.

Here’s what he said about the decision to reject the real-time ruling from the on-field officials that Likely had completed the catch process, for what would (should) have been a go-ahead touchdown with 2:47 to play.

“There’s three elements that have to be satisfied,” Anderson said, “Control of the football. And then two steps or a body part. And so he gets control, he takes two steps. What are we now looking for? And the rule is very specific. After those first two, you’ve got to have that third element. And the most common element for receivers that are running is a third step with control of the ball. As you can see here, before that third step gets down, the defender is able to punch the ball out. That’s why the pass is incomplete.”

If we’re only focusing on a third foot as the way to satisfy the third element, Anderson isn’t wrong. The problem is that, as we explained at the time, the replay process has focused on three feet down to the exclusion of the other ways to perform an act common to the game: “extend[ing] the ball forward, . . . tuck[ing] the ball away and turn[ing] upfield, or avoid[ing] or ward[ing] off an opponent.”

Anderson did not address, and was not asked to address, whether Likely had extended the ball forward or warded off an opponent. To overturn the ruling of a touchdown, the replay process requires (as the rules are written) clear and obvious evidence that Likely had done neither of those things.

“We can keep arguing about this for a long time,” Steve Mariucci said after Anderson explained the Likely ruling. “What is a football move?”

And then there was no discussion whatsoever about the other side to the argument. No mention of whether Likely had, or hadn’t, made a football move/act common to the game. More importantly (and more on that in a second), there was no reference to whether Likely had possession of the ball long enough to do so.

Anderson also made no effort to reconcile the replay ruling on the Aaron Rodgers “catch” with the Likely ruling, probably because Anderson and the rest of the league office know that the decisions cannot be reconciled. If Rodgers caught the ball, then Likely did, too.

Anderson instead addressed a play from Thursday night’s Falcons-Buccaneers game. The catch and fumble by Falcons running back Bijan Robinson.

“These plays are very, very similar, except for that third element,” Anderson said. “And so what you can see here is Bijan Robinson gets control of the ball, he gets two steps, and then what he’s able to do, because that left is one, the right is two, the left foot comes down again. That’s the third step, and then he loses the ball. So he’s completed all three elements of the catch process. That’s why this is a catch and in this case a fumble. Had Likely got that third step down while he maintained control of the ball because he was in the end zone, it would have been a touchdown because by rule then the ball would be dead in the end zone.”

Again, they’re focusing only on the third foot and ignoring the rest of the rule, both as to performing an act common to the game and having the time to do so.

Consider this, and watch the Robinson play at full speed, not in slow-motion. If Robinson had possession of the ball long enough to perform an act common to the game (by rule, take a third step among other things), didn’t Likely have possession of the ball long enough to perform an act common to the game?

Even if we ignore the fact that Likely was extending the ball and/or warding off an opponent (and it’s not clear and obvious he wasn’t), Likely had it long enough to, for instance, “tuck the ball away and turn upfield.” But Likely had no reason to do that, because: (1) he was in the end zone; and (2) he was trying to keep the ball away from a defender who was literally attached to his back and trying to knock out the ball.

Here’s the bottom line. Whoever is making the decisions about replay review in the league office (and many throughout the league don’t know who that is at any given moment) has decided to hinge the catch decision on getting three feet down, and to disregard the rest of the rule as it relates to performing an act common to the game, or having enough time to do so.

That’s the inescapable message, both from last week’s ruling and Anderson’s Sunday morning explanation of it. The league office has gone rogue as to the catch rule (and the replay standard), ignoring language that was adopted by a 75-percent supermajority vote of ownership.

At this point, the only way to fix the problem will be for the owners to take control of the situation, if necessary reminding the employees of the league office who writes the checks — and who cashes them.