Kyler Murray’s hamstring injury is serious enough that it will sideline him for at least a week.
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters in his Thursday press conference that Murray is out for Monday night’s game against the Bills with a hamstring strain and is considered week-to-week.
Carson Wentz will start Week 9, which will be his second start of the season.
“For [Murray], his movement skills, and the way he plays the game, we do feel like we’d be putting him at risk of possibly turning this into a more significant injury than it is by trying to have him work through it here early on,” O’Connell said. “So, Carson will start the football game and Max [Brosmer] will back him up.”
While it didn’t seem like O’Connell was too concerned about Murray’s availability earlier in the week, further testing revealed the extent of the issue.
“I think hamstrings are always unique,” O’Connell said. "[Y]ou always have to understand that whatever that picture or that imaging says, sometimes it’s an injury you can really hone in on. That’s why I wanted to be certain before I went speculating on Monday just because I wanted to be sure it wasn’t something that would prohibit him from playing — until it was.
“I’m not going to get into the details of the grade or the injury or the level medically speaking, but just knowing that Kyler needs his mobility — it’s a big, huge part of what makes him an effective player. If that puts him at risk of potentially adding to the grade of the injury, we can’t do that. It’s a long season. We hope to get him back and get him going.”
O’Connell noted injured reserve is not a consideration for Murray with this injury.
Wentz stepped in and played after Murray suffered a concussion earlier this season. Wentz completed 23-of-39 passes against the Packers and Bears for 276 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.
“Obviously, there’s a ton of confidence in Carson,” O’Connell said. “He’s had a major, major role in two wins this year against two really good teams. He’s a steadying presence and a guy we know can go in and play good football, that’s why we feel so great about having him here.
“He’s going to throw a lot of completions. He’s going to put the ball in play. He’s got such a high, high understanding of not only the offense but what he’s looking at on the other side. He has 100 games of experience. He’s the perfect guy in a moment where you can’t have Kyler out there at full strength to go in there. And we feel very strongly about when Carson’s in there, we’re going to get really effective quarterback play.”
Minnesota’s offense has struggled to generate yards and points this season, with the club ranking No. 27 in scoring and No. 29 in total yards. We’ll see if Wentz can provide a spark to change that on Monday night.
Bills Clips
Bills quarterback Josh Allen and running back James Cook can both reach a big career milestone on Monday night against the Vikings.
Allen and Cook may both reach 5,000 career rushing yards: Allen currently has 4,991 rushing yards in his career, and Cook currently has 4,966, so Allen needs nine yards against the Vikings and Cook needs 34 yards to reach 5,000.
Allen is averaging 39 rushing yards per game this season and Cook is averaging 101, so it’s likely that they’ll both reach the 5,000-yard milestone on Monday night.
Allen would be the fifth quarterback in NFL history with 5,000 career rushing yards. Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is the NFL’s all-time quarterback leader with 6,666 career rushing yards. Behind Jackson are Michael Vick with 6,109, Cam Newton with 5,628 and Russell Wilson with 5,568. Allen probably won’t catch Jackson, who, though currently injured, is a year younger and will keep adding to his yardage total. But the 30-year-old Allen has a great chance of continuing to rack up rushing yards long enough to move ahead of Vick into No. 2 in rushing yardage among quarterbacks in NFL history.
Cook is in his fifth year in the NFL and is on closing in on his fourth consecutive 1,000-yard season. He ranks 15th among active NFL players in career rushing yards, and Allen ranks 14th.
The Bills said they’d be keeping safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson. And now they’re not.
Tuesday’s surprise move to release the veteran defensive back directly contradicts the comments made publicly by coach Joe Brady, on the same day Gardner-Johnson received a one-game suspension for spitting on an opponent during the Week 6 game against the Raiders.
“Look, C.J.'s a member of the Buffalo Bills,” Brady said on October 19. “We brought him here for a reason, and we know that he knows that he has to play better. He knows he has to be better for this team, and, you know, just like everybody else, right, we’ve got to learn from this stuff, and we have to improve and find ways to get better as the season goes.”
And now Gardner-Johnson is gone.
As one source explained it to PFT, the Bills decided that Gardner-Johnson was simply too “high-maintenance” — and that the talent and production didn’t justify the headaches.
Plenty of other teams could have told the Bills what would happen. Gardner-Johnson has hopscotched around the league, from the Saints to the Eagles to the Lions to the Eagles (again) to the Texans to the Ravens to the Bears to the Bills.
He has been good enough to get more chances, but not good enough to keep him around in light of the issues that he brings with him.
The Bills hoped to harness his attitude in order to give the defense a lift. In the end, however, the baggage outweighed the boost.
And now Gardner-Johnson becomes a free agent again. Plenty of coaches believe they can be the one to speak to a player’s better angels. As to Gardner-Johnson, the demons have won, far too often.
C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s suspension is over, but he will not be returning to the Bills.
Buffalo announced that Gardner-Johnson has been released on Tuesday afternoon.
Gardner-Johnson was suspended for Week 8 after spitting at an opponent during Buffalo’s Week 6 win over Las Vegas.
Via Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network, Gardner-Johnson’s release was related more to the inconsistency in his play than the spitting incident, with the team feeling there were too many “what the hell is he doing?” plays.
Damar Hamlin is in line to start at safety with Gardner-Johnson’s release.
In six games, Gardner-Johnson recorded 26 total tackles, two passes defensed, and one interception.
How can the Vikings bench Kyler Murray without benching Kyler Murray?
They can rely on an injury through which he otherwise would be able to play.
It’s hard not to look at the current status of Murray’s hamstring “tightness” as cover for a soft benching of Murray. That gives the Vikings a chance to let Carson Wentz, who played well enough in most of the Week 1 win over the Packers and all of the Week 2 win over the Bears.
While the Vikings will never admit to that strategy, consider this undeniable fact: On Tuesday, offensive coordinator Wes Phillips was asked for an assessment of Murray’s play “in the past couple weeks.”
“I don’t really want to get into, like, overarching, ‘Hey, this is this is the . . .,” Phillips said. “You know, the fact of the matter is, you know, we lost the game against a tough [Lions] football team on the road. It’s a division game. It stings, but we’ve got to get better moving forward. And, you know, we’ll see as the week goes on, where we’re at in that spot . . . but, yeah, we’ve got to get better. We’re going to actively pursue every avenue we can to make that happen.”
This implies, if taken literally, pursuing every avenue toward acquiring an upgrade via a trade — whether that’s Jacoby Brissett, Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins, or even Justin Herbert.
It all comes down to whether the Vikings are content to keep doing what they’ve been doing, or whether they’ll make a move aimed at significantly upgrading a position that, in recent weeks, has not been good enough.
Yes, they’re 6-1. That’s better than anyone could have expected them to be. But it’s not because Murray has turned the clock back to the early years of his career. His passer rating (86.6) is toward the bottom of all qualifying quarterbacks (and, in fairness, that’s higher than the numbers generated by Brissett, Jones, and Herbert).
It’s the lowest number for any season of Murray’s career, and the overall performance is less than what the Vikings need to maximize their current formula.
Especially since he’s not getting the ball to receiver Justin Jefferson. That’s something Wentz did consistently in 2025, making Wentz the preferred option to J.J. McCarthy — who returned to the lineup following a Week 2 ankle injury only after Wentz suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in Week 8.
If McCarthy was still in Minnesota, there would be an unavoidable groundswell to give him a shot. But he lost the No. 2 job to Wentz. Which means Wentz won it.
Which means that the Vikings could be thinking about giving Wentz a Monday night audition against the Bills, with a plan to make a possible trade the next day if things don’t go well.
For now, the rest of the week will reveal whether and to what extent Murray or Wentz will take the first-team reps at practice. And whether Murray or Wentz will play on Monday night.
It won’t be a surprise if it’s Wentz against the Bills. Even if Murray is technically healthy enough to play.
When the schedule is released every May, plenty of standalone games that look good at the time morph into something not quite as appetizing as the season unfolds. Some standalone games get better with time.
This year, there’s a trio of massive games lurking on Christmas Day.
At 1:00 p.m. ET, it’s the Packers at the Bears. At 4:30 p.m. ET, it’s the Bills at the Broncos. At 8:15 p.m., it’s the Rams at the Seahawks.
With the Bears emerging as a threat to win the NFC North and the No. 1 seed in the conference, the rematch with their biggest rivals (who beat them 31-7 in Week 5) becomes must-see TV. Bills at Broncos, a rematch of a postseason overtime classic that got Buffalo coach Sean McDermott fired, should have direct implications on two division races and the chase for the lone bye in the AFC.
The nightcap shapes up to be not a battle for the NFC West title and/or the top seed but a potential elimination game, given that both Seattle and L.A. are currently 4-4.
Regardless, all three games should be significant. Impactful. Consequential.
And they’ll more than make up for the Christmas Eve game, which has the 2-5 Texans at the 2-6 Eagles.
In recent weeks, Simms and I have raised once or twice the question of whether Bears quarterback Caleb Williams belongs in the top tier of NFL franchise quarterbacks.
Based on Monday night’s 34-point performance against a Seahawks defense that held the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes to three points a week earlier, it’s time to render a verdict.
Yes.
The new top four, in our view, are (in no particular order), Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and Caleb Williams.
Lamar Jackson previously had been the fourth. A lost season due to multiple injuries puts him at No. 5, until he reestablishes himself in 2027. (And there’s no reason to believe he won’t, if he can get and stay healthy.)
For now, Caleb has crashed the party.
In Week 7 at Seattle, Mahomes completed 19 of 33 passes for 165 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception. His passer rating for the game was 58.9. In Week 8 at Seattle, Williams went 24 for 34 for 247 yards, one touchdown, and no picks. Williams also sparked a 39-yard gain on a key third-down backward pass to receiver Khalif Raymond, which set up the score that turned a 20-17 margin into a 27-17 clincher.
And before anyone says Mahomes didn’t have any support in the running game, Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker III and Bears running back D’Andre Swift averaged an identical 2.6 yards per carry against the Seahawks’ defense.
So, yes, Caleb is a top-level NFL quarterback. Despite missing three games with a hamstring injury, his odds to win the NFL MVP award are down to 5-1, behind only Allen, Brock Purdy, and Burrow.
If the Bears keep doing what they did on Monday night — and if they finish the season with the No. 1 seed in the NFC — Williams will get plenty of votes. And he has a real chance to win it.
Even if he’d much rather win the MVP award not for the regular season, but for the Super Bowl.
The 3-5 Cowboys have plenty of problems. During the first of his two weekly radio spots on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, owner and G.M. Jerry Jones mentioned one specific thing that he’d like to see change.
Regarding receiver George Pickens, Jones said this, via Jon Machota of The Athletic: “He needs the ball coming his way more.”
Through eight games, Pickens has 62 targets. In Week 8 against the Cardinals, Pickens had the ball thrown in his direction only four times. Against the Eagles in Week 7, Pickens had six targets.
He has 39 catches for 533 yards and two touchdowns in 2026. That projects to 83 catches for 1,132 yards and 8.5 touchdowns.
In 2025, Pickens finished with 93 receptions, 1,429 yards, and nine scores.
Hovering over the situation is the decision the Cowboys will have to make after the season. He’s making $27.298 million under the franchise tag; they could tag him again next year, at $32.758 million. Which is still nearly $10 million behind the top of the receiver market.
There’s another option, now that the Cowboys are fading in the race for the NFC East title. They could make Pickens available in trade.
Would a contender offer a second-round pick for him? The Chiefs are currently desperate for help at receiver; they’re interested (we’re told) in Jaguars receiver Brian Thomas Jr. and Colts receiver Josh Downs. If the Chiefs are in on Pickens, other teams in the AFC (like the Bills) should be thinking about it, too.
If the Cowboys were to decide to make a move, they could stockpile a pick or two — and save $15.17 million in cash and cap space. For now, who knows? The Cowboys seem to be deluding themselves into thinking they’re still contenders.
Unless that’s just part of the annual effort to keep their fans coughing up cash for tickets and merch. Which continues to work very well, relative to the on-field production.
For 31 years, and counting.
Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray said he was dealing with hamstring tightness late in Sunday’s loss to the Lions and his hamstring remains an issue on Monday.
Murray did not leave Sunday’s game, but head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters at a press conference that the quarterback is dealing with soreness. Murray will be fully evaluated before the team makes any determination about his status for their Week 9 Monday night game against the Bills.
“I don’t think we’re there yet,” O’Connell said.
O’Connell did say that the Vikings plan to start Murray against Buffalo as long as he is healthy enough to play. Speculation about a possible change has simmered as the Vikings offense struggled over the course of their 6-0 start and it has picked up in the wake of Minnesota’s first loss of the season, but it doesn’t look like they’ll pull the trigger on any move as long as Murray is cleared to play this week.
The Bills allowed an average of 28.5 points per game in their first six games of the 2026 season and improving on that was a focus for the team during their bye week.
Sunday’s return to action resulted in much better numbers. They allowed the Ravens 144 yards in a 36-10 win that moved their record to 6-1 on the season. After the game was over, head coach Joe Brady said he wants the unit to look at that performance as their standard for the rest of the season.
“I think our defense should look at today and understand that that’s what the expectation is,” Brady said, via the team’s website. “And I’m not talking about the production. I’m not talking about the takeaways and sacks. I’m talking about the style that they played, the way that they flew around. Look, I’m just watching it out there, but I think the silent tape’s going to speak loudly in terms of the way that they played for one another, the way they ran around, the communication. Everything we challenged them with coming off the bye, I thought they responded to it, and they just kept going.”
Brady’s message was about the defense, but it’s hard to ignore what was going on for the Ravens offense. Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley both left the game with injuries, which meant undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano was pressed into action for the first time in the NFL.
Fagnano was overmatched, but future Bills opponents won’t be quite so hamstrung and the Buffalo defense will have to show that they are able to match that level of play against all comers.
