The Eagles have shown the 49ers how it’s done.
A day before Philadelphia’s Week 2 Monday night game — and before the commencement of the full slate of 1:00 p.m. ET Sunday games — the Eagles have downgraded receiver A.J. Brown from questionable to out with a hamstring injury.
The move, coincidentally or otherwise, gives fantasy football players full and fair notice of the fact that Brown should be benched for Week 2.
Last week, the 49ers listed running back Christian McCaffrey as questionable with a calf/Achilles injury and at no point downgraded him. He was surprisingly added to the list of inactive players, 90 minutes before kickoff. The delayed disclosure left many in a lurch; the NFL investigated the situation but did not discipline the 49ers.
Brown suffered the injury during practice this week. He was off the report on Thursday, limited in practice on Friday, and out of practice on Saturday. The Eagles had listed him as questionable.
Eagles receiver A.J. Brown did not practice Saturday after leaving Friday’s session with a hamstring injury. The Eagles list him as questionable to play in Monday Night Football against the Falcons.
“Just got a little tight in practice yesterday,” coach Nick Sirianni said Saturday.
Brown caught five passes for 119 yards and a touchdown in the season-opening win over the Packers.
He did not play in the Eagles’ playoff loss to the Bucs last season because of a knee injury, but Brown has played every game since joining the Eagles before the 2022 season.
The Eagles also list receiver Johnny Wilson (hamstring) as questionable.
Jahan Dotson likely will see a bigger role than last week when he played 32 snaps but did not catch a pass on one target. Dotson arrived Aug. 22 in a trade from Washington.
“He’s worked his butt off,” Sirianni said. “He’s obviously a very talented player. We’ll see how that goes.”
The Falcons ruled out inside linebacker Nate Landman and defensive back Antonio Hamilton Sr. for Monday Night Football.
Landman had a quad injury late in the preseason but played in the season opener. He saw action on 54 percent of the defensive snaps and had a crucial fourth-and-one stop in the fourth quarter.
Landman, though, also now has a calf injury and did not participate in practice this week.
The Falcons have only rookie JD Bertrand behind starters Kaden Elliss and Troy Andersen and do not have a true inside linebacker on the practice squad. They did workout veteran linebackers Kwon Alexander, Rashaan Evans and Josh Woods on Friday.
Hamilton will miss his second consecutive game with a groin injury as he returned to limited practices Friday and Saturday.
Offensive tackle Kaleb McGary (groin) and running back Jase McClellan (knee) were full participants Saturday and neither has a designation.
It was nasty and it was ugly and it seemed like it would never end.
And then it did.
DirecTV and Disney have reached an agreement in principle to end the dispute that kept ESPN and the rest of the Disney-owned networks off of the service with 11 million total subscribers.
Disney has announced that all networks will be restored on DirecTV as the companies dot i’s and cross t’s on a long-term deal.
That means Falcons-Eagles will be available for all DirecTV customers on Monday night. Along with college football and all other ESPN offerings.
So that’s that. It felt like it would never end. Both sides were dug in. The fight was existential.
Blah blah blah, it’s now over.
Receiver A.J. Brown was a surprise addition to the Eagles’ practice report Friday. He was limited with a hamstring injury.
Brown caught five passes for 119 yards and a touchdown in the season-opening win over the Packers.
He did not play in the Eagles’ playoff loss to the Bucs last season because of a knee injury, but Brown has played every game since joining the Eagles before the 2022 season.
The Eagles will release their status report for Monday Night Football on Saturday, which will provide more insight into the severity of Brown’s injury.
The Eagles also added backup offensive tackle Fred Johnson to their practice report as limited with a thumb injury.
The rest of the report remained the same as Thursday with defensive tackle Milton Williams (foot) limited and cornerback Isaiah Rodgers (hand) and linebacker Devin White (ankle) full participants. Rodgers and White were inactive for the season opener.
The first game action for Kirk Cousins since tearing his Achilles tendon raised plenty of questions about whether he has truly healed from the injury, surgery, and rehab.
Cousins addressed the concerns about his apparent unwillingness or inability to plant his right leg and drive the ball in a Thursday session with reporters.
“I feel good,” Cousins said, via Tori McElhaney of the team’s official website. “The Achilles feels good. I feel like I can move and push how I need to.”
Cousins added that he needs more live action in order to trust the leg. Based on Week 1, he wasn’t trusting it.
He wasn’t using his lower body the way he has. He was overcompensating, putting too much of his upper body into the throws. And he had less power and accuracy because of it.
The next test comes Monday night in Philadelphia, followed by a Sunday night home game against the Chiefs. Thus, whatever he does in the next two games, there will be no hiding it among a cluster of 1:00 p.m. ET games.
In the aftermath of a not-impressive debut with the Falcons, concerns are spreading regarding the overall health of quarterback Kirk Cousins’s surgically repaired right leg.
The biggest issues are his pre-snap stance and the use of his lower body in throwing the ball.
Here’s a great explanation from former NFL quarterback Chase Daniel about Cousins’s pre-snap leg positioning. Throughout his career, Cousins had his right foot forward. After getting the ball, he’d push off the right foot to start into his drop. Now, his feet are even. As a result, he doesn’t have that extra burst — presumably because he doesn’t want to put extra stress on the leg that had a torn Achilles tendon.
Chris Simms explained on Wednesday the problems that arose after Cousins got the ball. He’s not driving the ball with his lower body. That requires him to plant the right foot hard and push down on it, mustering the extra oomph for the throw. Instead, he’s muscling it with his upper body.
Consequently, there’s less drive. Less pop. Less accuracy.
It doesn’t help that the Falcons faced the Steelers. It doesn’t help that Steelers fans overtook Mercedes-Benz Stadium, forcing the Falcons into a silent count early.
As Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt explained it to PFT after the Pittsburgh win, the advantage was significant.
"[A]nytime you can have a home team on a silent count all game, it’s so demoralizing for opposing offenses,” Watt said, “and even on the fumble that I was able to recover, it was huge when they have to go silent count and they’re motioning and shifting and the ball gets snapped at a random time or the ball ends up on the ground, that goes to the crowd for creating that havoc.”
It does help that there weren’t enough Falcons fans present to permit their discontent to coalesce and amplify. If that happens next Sunday night, when the Falcons host the Chiefs, a three-word chant could emerge from the stands.
“We . . . want . . . Penix.”
And maybe that’s why the Falcons didn’t play rookie Michael Penix Jr. beyond the first preseason game. Maybe they were concerned that they’ll need him sooner than anyone might have expected.
Before we’ll see Cousins in primetime for Week 3, we’ll see him in primetime to cap Week 2. At Philadelphia. Against another great defense. With clear things to watch when he’s waiting to get the ball and after he has it in his hands.
Running back Saquon Barkley’s Eagles debut was a good one.
Barkley scored the team’s first touchdown of the season on an 18-yard pass from quarterback Jalen Hurts and then ran for two more touchdowns later in a 34-29 win over the Packers in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Barkley finished the night with 24 carries for 109 yards and two catches for 23 yards.
The NFL announced on Wednesday that Barkley has been named the NFC offensive player of the week in recognition of that performance.
Barkley and the Eagles are now back in the states and he’ll get a chance to build on his strong start against the Falcons on Monday night.
One of the various items of Week 1 Sunday Splash! news wasn’t really new.
Bill Belichick wants to coach in 2025.
Of course he does. He wanted to coach in 2024. But first he got fired and then he got only one interview and next he didn’t get offered the job.
The report from ESPN.com added that Belichick is expected to be “choosy.” This implies he won’t be beggy.
There’s no guarantee he’ll get an offer. There’s no guarantee he’ll get an interview. Yes, he’s the best game-day coach in league history. Unless, however, a team is going to give him the keys to the entire football operation, the folks who would work with Belichick (or the folks he would be working for) might not be comfortable with the situation.
Belichick has embraced the media in the hopes of getting fans to warm up to him. He’s trying (a little too hard) to be folksy and relatable. He arguably is overexposed. His appearance on the ManningCast apparently didn’t move the needle; otherwise, ESPN P.R. would have been bragging about it.
So who will want him? The Cowboys could have hired him after 2023. They didn’t. The Eagles could have. They didn’t. Maybe they will after a failed season in 2024 — if either or both have failed seasons.
Maybe the Giants will do it. Maybe someone else will roll the dice on Belichick. Maybe there’s a team that has the talent and simply needs Belichick’s genius to turn it around.
Regardless, it’s more than a little presumptuous for Belichick to think he’ll even be in position to be choosy next year. He struck out this year. The only thing that will be different after this season is that he’ll be a year older.
Which is never a good thing when it comes to coaching in the NFL, because age discrimination is a very real dynamic, for more than a few teams.
The fight between Disney and DirecTV is getting political. Literally.
Via Variety.com, Disney offered to provide DirecTV customers with access to ABC News’ coverage of tonight’s presidential debate. DirecTV, however, declined.
“Unfortunately, returning only Disney’s ABC stations from the entire portfolio of channels for a limited three-hour window will cause customer confusion among those who would briefly see the debate only to lose the channel again shortly after,” DirecTV said in a statement.
DirecTV countered by requesting a return of all Disney content to DirecTV through the end of next week’s Monday Night Football game between the Falcons and Eagles. Disney refused.
“Returning the Disney-owned channels for the next week while we work to reach a new agreement would benefit customers who would regain access to ABC for the debate and the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 16, as well as their favorite college and professional football games on ABC and ESPN, ACC or SEC networks,” DirecTV said.
Although ABC is hosting the debate, other networks will broadcast it. So it’s not as if DirecTV customers will be frozen out of seeing it.
DirecTV customers will be frozen out of seeing next week’s Monday night game, since it’s only on ESPN. With the exception of folks in Atlanta and Philadelphia (who will have access to an over-the-air broadcast of the contest), no DirecTV customer will see the game.
Which will only cause more DirecTV customers to switch to a different service. It’s far easier than it used to be to sign up for a streaming platform that provides ESPN and related content.
We’re not saying anyone should dump DirecTV to do that. We are saying it’s a no-brainer for folks who have DirecTV and want to watch content like Monday Night Football to ditch the service that doesn’t have pro football and sign up for something that does.