The Jets placed three players on injured reserve Tuesday and they may be missing another member of their offense for their Week 3 game in Detroit.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that tight end Mason Taylor is considered week-to-week due to a thumb injury. The Jets will release their first injury report of the week on Wednesday.
Taylor started each of the Jets’ first two games. He did not catch a pass in Sunday’s loss to the Packers and his two catches in Week 1’s win over the Titans resulted in a loss of two yards.
First-round pick Kenyon Sadiq, Jeremy Ruckert, and Jelani Woods are the other tight ends on their 53-man roster.
Lions Clips
The Lions signed safety Bishop Fitzgerald off the Steelers’ practice squad on Tuesday, according to the NFL’s personnel notice.
Fitzgerald originally signed with the Titans as an undrafted rookie free agent this spring. He joined the Steelers’ practice squad after the Titans waived him out of the preseason.
Fitzgerald totaled five interceptions last season at USC. He also played collegiately at Coffeyville Community College and North Carolina State.
The Lions cut linebacker Joe Bachie and defensive back Avonte Maddox on season-ending injured reserve with a foot injury that requires surgery.
Bachie played 32 special teams snaps in the first two games but none on defense.
As the NFL has changed its overtime rules, one of the league’s priorities was de-emphasizing the coin toss. Sudden death overtime fell out of favor largely because of the big advantage it gave to the team winning the toss, and the NFL wanted an overtime format that wouldn’t make winning the coin toss important.
This year, it seems to be working.
There have been three overtime games this season, and all three times, the team that won the overtime coin toss lost the game.
In Week 1, the Saints won the toss and chose to kick. The Lions scored a touchdown and extra point on the first possession, and the Saints then scored a touchdown on the second possession. The Saints went for two, didn’t convert, and lost 31-30.
In Week 2, the Jets won the toss and chose to receive. Jets coach Aaron Glenn said he wanted to control the clock, but that didn’t happen: The Jets went three-and-out on the first possession, and the Packers quickly moved into field goal range and won 20-17.
And on Sunday night in Week 2, the Colts won the toss and, despite having a captain who didn’t know the overtime rule, eventually got their choice to kick. Colts coach Shane Steichen said he wanted to kick because he didn’t want to give Patrick Mahomes four downs on the second possession. As it turned out, the Chiefs got a field goal on the first possession, the Colts tied with their own field goal on the second possession, and the Chiefs won 33-30 with another field goal on their third possession.
The current overtime format was adopted last season, and there’s still no consensus among coaches about whether it’s better to kick or receive — as demonstrated by Glenn making a different decision than Steichen and Moore. As long as that’s the case, winning the coin toss doesn’t matter very much. And that’s as it should be.
The Lions have struggled in the secondary through the first two weeks of the season and part of the reason why they’re having a hard time is the absence of safeties Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph.
Head coach Dan Campbell said at a Monday press conference that Branch, who is coming off a torn Achilles, is probably closer to returning from the physically unable to perform list than Joseph. Joseph has been dealing with knee problems since early last season and Campbell was asked on 97.1 The Ticket on Tuesday what he would say to someone who wonders if Joseph is going to play at all this season.
“I wish I could make you feel good,” Campbell said. “I can’t make you feel good. It’s going to come as it comes, and he’s not ready. We’re trying to get him there as fast as we can, and we’re trying to be as smart about it as we can. If he’s ready, when he’s ready, of course we want to play him and get him on the field.”
The Lions lost another safety when Avonte Maddox went down in Week 2 and they added veteran Jalen Mills to their practice squad on Monday to help bolster their depth. Barring a major change for Joseph, they may remain on the search for help at the back end of the defense all year.
Lions coach Dan Campbell says two games into the season is way too soon to know what kind of football team he has.
“We don’t even know what we are yet, entirely. We don’t know what we are,” Campbell said. “The 2026 Detroit Lions’ offense, defense, special teams, what do we really hang our hat on? We’ve got an idea on some of our go-to guys, our heavy hitters, but what do we really do well with those guys? And we won’t, and I hate saying it, we’re not gonna know until probably around the bye [Week 6]. Until we get a good four or five games, and you really start to figure out, this is what we can do and where we can really grow.”
Campbell said the Lions’ 41-31 loss to the Bills on Thursday night doesn’t mean they’re not a good team that will have a successful season.
“As bad as it was, it’s not as bad as it appears to be,” Campbell said. “And you clean a couple things up, you get guys right, you put guys in the right positions, one guy does what he’s supposed to do, that leads to trust the other guy, now we can start cutting it loose and we get our confidence back, and the offense starts playing better, we start converting more, now all of a sudden you begin to get a little bit better, the floor begins to rise on where you’re at. I’m not discouraged.”
Now the Lions prepare for a home game against the Jets — where a loss would drop their record to 1-2 and raise even more questions about what kind of team the Lions are.
The christening of the new Bills’ stadium had plenty of witnesses. Both in the building and elsewhere.
Prime Video has announced that 18.6 million watched the Week 2 Thursday night game between the Lions and the Bills. Buffalo raced to a 21-0 lead, and emerged with a 41-31 win.
It’s a five-percent bump over the 2025 Thursday night opener between the Commanders and Packers, and a 21-percent increase over last year’s full-season average of 15.33 million.
It’s the fifth season of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video. And the numbers gradually have been increasing, as more people pivot to the paid streaming platform.
This week, there could be a dip. The Falcons, who lost in ugly fashion to the Panthers on Sunday, will face the Packers at Lambeau Field. It’s Green Bay’s home opener — and it’s the first of three straight Falcons games in prime time.
Lions safety Avonte Maddox was forced out of last Sunday’s loss to the Bills with a foot injury and he won’t be back on the field anytime soon.
Head coach Dan Campbell said at a Monday press conference that Maddox will have surgery to repair the injury and that he will miss the rest of the season as a result.
Maddox played 14 games for the Lions and was a backup in most of those contests. He started the first two games this season with Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph sidelined by injuries of their own.
All of those missing pieces have the Lions looking for outside help in the secondary as they move toward a Week 3 game against the Jets.
Only the Colts have given up more points and yards than the Lions so far this season, so it’s not surprising to hear that Detroit is looking for some outside defensive help.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that the team will have several veteran defensive backs in for workouts on Monday. Jordan Fuller, Jalen Mills, and Mike Edwards are among the players set to participate.
Mills played in three games for the Lions last season. Edwards saw time with the Chiefs while Fuller appeared in six games for the Falcons.
The Lions have safeties Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph on the physically unable to perform list, which means they won’t be able to return until Week 5 at the earliest. They lost another safety to injury when Avonte Maddox got hurt last Thursday and cornerback Rock Ya-Sin was also banged up during their loss to the Bills.
Heading into the season, the Vikings were a distant fourth in the betting odds to win the NFC North. A lot can change in two weeks.
The Vikings are now 2-0, with both wins coming against division opponents, a game ahead of the Lions, Packers and Bears, and the new betting favorites to win the division.
The Vikings’ odds are +194 to win what looks to be the NFL’s most competitive division. The Lions are next at +205, followed by the Packers at +285. Last year’s NFC North winners, the Bears, not have the longest odds, at +500, amid concerns that Caleb Williams could miss extended time with a hamstring injury.
Uncertainty at quarterback in Minnesota is an issue, but the Vikings have found a way to win two weeks in a row with Carson Wentz replacing the injured Kyler Murray. The Vikings’ defense looks ferocious, and the Vikings look like a playoff team. Something few thought they’d be just a couple weeks ago.
As the ESPN and NFL Network integration continues, there has been one noticeable change to the NFLN Sunday pregame show.
NFL officiating and rules analyst Walt Anderson did not make an appearance on the Week 2 show. It’s our understanding that Anderson will be used as needed.
He made an appearance last week, to discuss the Western Michigan-Michigan late-game clock issue and the safeguards the NFL has against such an outcome. This week, it would have been useful to hear Anderson explain the rule that no one knew about before it was applied during last Sunday’s Saints-Lions game — especially since the rule may have been applicable in the AFC Championship game, but was never mentioned.
While “as needed” is inherently subjective, it’s arguably necessary to make sure everyone understands the niceties of a wonky rule that allows, in theory, a quarterback to be hit after he starts his throwing motion, get spun around, fire the ball straight behind him, and have the final outcome of the play somehow be regarded as a forward pass.
