The Broncos have good news and bad news at running back on their final injury report ahead of Sunday night’s game against the Rams.
J.K. Dobbins and RJ Harvey are on the good news side. Dobbins (hip) and Harvey (hamstring) were both full practice participants the last two days and they do not have injury designations for Sunday. Harvey missed last Sunday’s win over Jacksonville and Dobbins was injured during the game.
The bad news involves rookie Jonah Coleman. He missed practice all week with an ankle injury and has been ruled out.
Wide receiver Marvin Mims (foot) was limited in practice and is questionable to play after missing last week’s win.
Rams Clips
Puka Nacua is set to miss another game.
Rams head coach Sean McVay said at his press conference that the wide receiver will miss practice again on Friday and he will be listed as doubtful to play against the Broncos on Sunday night. Nacua also missed the Week 2 win over the Giants with a hip injury.
McVay said earlier this week that they are erring on the side of caution with bringing Nacua back and said Friday that the team hopes the wideout will be able to play against the Eagles in Week 4.
Safety Kam Kinchens (hamstring) will also be listed as doubtful to play against Denver. Tight end Colby Parkinson (knee) will be listed as questionable.
Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua sat out practice again Thursday. He has missed the past four practices after injuring his hip in the Sept. 17 practice.
It puts his availability for the Week 3 game in question.
Nacua missed the Week 2 victory over the Giants, watching as Davante Adams caught eight passes for 195 yards and two touchdowns.
Coach Sean McVay said Wednesday the Rams will be deliberate in Nacua’s return given it’s a soft-tissue.
Wide receiver Jordan Whittington (quad) returned to practice Thursday with limited work. He did not play in Week 2.
Offensive lineman Alaric Jackson (knee) and tight end Terrance Ferguson (ankle) were full participants Thursday after being limited a day earlier.
Tight end Colby Parkinson (knee) and safety Kam Kinchens (hamstring) were non-participants a second consecutive day.
Inside linebacker Nate Landman (shoulder) remained limited.
It’s no surprise that a game featuring the presumptive preseason Super Bowl champions and a surprisingly 1-0 team from the nation’s top media market performed well in a standalone window.
The Giants-Rams Week 2 Monday night game attracted a total average audience of 19.4 million on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes.
ESPN claims that Monday Night Football viewership is up 29 percent over the first two weeks of the season.
But it’s difficult to do a true apples-to-apples comparison. In Week 2 of the 2025 season, the NFL staged a consecutive doubleheader on Monday night. The first game, Buccaneers at Texans, started at 7:00 p.m. ET on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes. The nightcap, Chargers at Raiders, began at 10:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.
The early game averaged 17.4 million viewers. The late game averaged 9.7 million viewers. The average viewership for the two games was 13.5 million.
So, yes, one game starting at the usual time on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes will outperform by a large margin a six-hour marathon with the first game on a big platform and the second game on a much smaller platform.
In future years, it won’t be an issue, because the NFL has pulled the plug on the Monday night doubleheader experiment. For this year, the fact that there were two games in Week 2 a year ago makes it very hard to credibly claim that there has been a dramatic increase in viewership through two weeks.
The top three Broncos running backs are all on the injury report.
Jonah Coleman did not practice on Wednesday due to an ankle injury. Coleman scored his first NFL touchdown in last Sunday’s win over the Jaguars and the rookie ran 10 times for 39 yards in the game.
Coleman saw more playing time because J.K. Dobbins left the game with a hip injury and RJ Harvey was inactive with a hamstring injury. Both of those backs were listed as limited participants.
Wide receiver Marvin Mims (foot) was also a limited participant. He missed practice all of last week and did not play against Jacksonville.
Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua missed Week 2 with a groin injury and his outlook for this week’s game against the Broncos remains unclear.
Head coach Sean McVay said that Nacua would have missed Wednesday’s practice — the team only held a jog-through — and they’ll see what he’s able to do on Thursday. McVay said Nacua is “frustrated,” but that the team doesn’t believe this is a long-term issue and will exercise caution to ensure it doesn’t become one.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s more along the lines of just seeing how that responds,” McVay said, via Nate Atkins of TheAthletic.com. “When you’re a skill player and you’re really trying to hit high-speed yards and really open up, then some of the things can be like pre-hernia is what he’s feeling. You err on the side of caution. Usually, time is the best thing that allows that thing to heal and then when you get to a certain point, I think you feel pretty good moving forward.”
If that doesn’t happen by Sunday, Davante Adams will remain the top wide receiving option for the Rams.
The Rams announced a pair of roster moves on Wednesday afternoon.
They signed safety Maximus Pulley off of the Eagles’ practice squad and added him to the active roster. Running back Ronnie Rivers was placed on injured reserve in a corresponding move.
Pulley played six special teams snaps as a temporary elevation in Philadelphia’s Week 2 win over the Titans. He entered the league as an undrafted free agent this offseason.
Rivers had five carries for 19 yards and one catch for five yards in the first two Rams games of the season, but suffered a calf injury in Monday night’s win over the Giants. He has been with the team since the 2022 season.
Rams coach Sean McVay was pleased with how defensive tackle Aaron Donald played on Monday night, in his first game back after being retired for two years.
“I can’t even think of the words to say the love and respect I have for who he is,” McVay said. “He does everything the right way. I think the cool thing is his standards — he’ll be excited about where he can improve. But pretty impressive to be off almost 1,000 days, come back and play the defensive line position, 30-plus snaps, make your impact felt tremendously, still eliciting double and triple teams because of who he is. That’s Aaron Donald for you. Never ceases to amaze me.”
McVay said it was obvious that Donald kept himself in shape during his retirement, but that Donald still has things he can improve as the season goes on.
“He still is taking great care of himself, the hard work pays off,” McVay said. “And I think the best is yet to come from him.”
McVay said he personally was pumped up seeing Donald run out of the tunnel, and that he could tell Donald’s teammates and the crowd were getting pumped up, too.
“You get goosebumps,” McVay said. “It elevated everybody, and that’s what the greats do.”
The Rams did not have an issue playing without star receiver Puka Nacua on Monday night, defeating the Giants, 28-6.
But the team would surely like to have Nacua healthy sooner rather than later, particularly as Los Angeles will face Denver on Sunday night in Week 3.
Head coach Sean McVay said on Tuesday that he was unsure of Nacua’s potential availability for the coming weekend as he deals with the psoas issue.
“I’m hopeful that he’ll play,” McVay said, via Gary Klein of the L.A. Times. “If he’s ready to go, great. If not, then we’ll continue to roll.”
Nacua missed practice on Friday and Saturday after the injury popped up during the week. He was listed as questionable for Monday night and was inactive for the contest.
“You have to redirect your whole kind of plans, and you almost have to operate where it’s like, ‘All right, if [Nacua] plays it’s a bonus, but we can’t count on him playing even though we were hopeful that there might be a chance,” McVay said. “It really just boiled down to ... when you have soft tissue injuries with guys like that, that are skill players, you’re going to err on the side of caution.”
Nacua caught five passes for 74 yards in the Rams’ season-opening loss to the 49ers.
Los Angeles’ first injury report of the week is due out on Wednesday.
The Rams didn’t have receiver Puka Nacua on Monday night. It made Davante Adams the focal point of the passing game.
And it added up to Adams catching nine passes for 175 yards and two touchdowns.
“He’s wide receiver one to me,” coach Sean McVay told reporters after the game. “He ain’t a two. He was special and it showed all night. That’s what he’s consistently done and I’m really happy for him. I thought he made some great plays, but you could see there’s a lot of trust that he and Matthew [Stafford] have. They were able to get a lot of work together this offseason, and it’s only going to continue to build. I was really happy for him. He did his thing tonight.”
And the Giants didn’t seem to do anything to adjust to Adams doing his thing.
Giants coach John Harbaugh was asked whether the Rams did anything that made it hard to cover Adams.
“They didn’t do anything special,” Harbaugh said. “He just made plays.”
Should the Giants have assigned cornerback Greg Newsome II to cover Adams wherever he goes?
“We had a lot of ideas,” Harbaugh said, “a lot of things we tried to do.”
They apparently didn’t try to double Adams, or to rotate the safeties in his direction.
It couldn’t have hurt. Yes, it would have made it easier for others to get open. And while that may have meant more opportunities for the tight ends, the Rams got very little from other receivers. Tutu Atwell caught one pass for 19 yards, and Konata Mumpfield caught one pass for 12 yards.
So, yes, maybe the things the Giants tried should have included taking Adams away. On Sunday night, the Broncos presumably will.
