The Bengals didn’t show concern about wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins missing Week 1 when they missed practice last week and the outlook continues to be good as they move closer to Week 1.
Chase and Higgins returned to practice on Monday. Chase hyperextended his knee in a practice and Higgins has been dealing with a heel contusion. Defensive end Shemar Stewart also practiced after returning to the field from a knee injury last week and head coach Zac Taylor made it sound like all three are on track to play.
“All three looked good today,” Taylor said at his press conference. “We’ll wait to release injury reports on Wednesday, but I was encouraged by the progress all three of those guys have made.”
The Bengals would like to get off to a fast start this season and having all three players on the field against the Bucs would be a good step in that direction.
Bucs Clips
Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles told reporters last week that receivers Emeka Egbuka and Jalen McMillan were “headed in the right direction” as they deal with their respective injuries.
Both players took a step forward to start the week.
According to multiple reporters on the scene, Egbuka and McMillan both returned to practice on Monday — a positive sign for their Week 1 availability.
Egbuka has been dealing with a toe injury, while McMillan has a knee injury.
Running back Sean Tucker, however, was not on the field for practice as he deals with an undisclosed injury.
The Buccaneers will play the Bengals in Cincinnati to open the season on Sunday. The first injury report of the week for the contest is due out on Wednesday.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 draft continues to embrace his status as a No. 2 quarterback.
Per multiple reports, the Giants and Jameis Winston have agreed to terms on a two-year, $13 million extension.
The move puts Winston under contract through 2028, as the clear backup to Jaxson Dart.
Winston became the Week 1 starter as a rookie in Tampa. After five seasons with the Buccaneers, he spent four years with the Saints (starting 10 games), one with the Browns (starting seven), and one with the Giants (starting two).
In lieu of finishing his current deal and becoming a free agent in March 2027 (where he could have potentially found a spot to compete for a starting role), Winston decided to stay put, with a total commitment of three years.
It doesn’t hurt Winston to be in New York, given that he seems to be destined to become a star in the media space, once his playing career ends.
Shaq Mason is ready to resume his career.
Via Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, Mason was informed by the NFLPA that he will not face discipline from the league stemming from his 2025 arrest.
While Mason was facing allegations of an alleged domestic assault and was arrested in Aug. 2025, all charges were subsequently dropped in April of this year. The investigation into his legal matters is now closed.
Mason was released by the Texans in March 2025 and was not with a team last year.
A fourth-round pick in 2015, Mason spent his first seven seasons with the Patriots, winning two Super Bowls. He then played for Tampa Bay in 2022 — reuniting with Tom Brady — before heading suiting up for Houston in 2023 and 2024.
Mason has appeared in 152 games with 147 starts in his career.
He remains a free agent who is eligible to immediately sign with a club.
Greg Schiano is officially on the hot seat at Rutgers.
Schiano, the former Buccaneers head coach who is in Year Seven of his second stint at Rutgers, has opened this season with perhaps the worst loss of his coaching career. Playing at home against a UMass squad that went 0-12 last year, Rutgers lost 37-21.
How shocking is that result? UMass was a 29-point underdog heading into tonight’s game. UMass was widely viewed as one of the worst teams in the nation heading into this season. UMass hadn’t beaten an FBS opponent since 2023. And now UMass has gone on the road and beaten Rutgers easily.
The 60-year-old Schiano first became head coach at Rutgers in 2001, when the Scarlet Knights were a bottom-feeder program, and steadily built his team up to the point where it went 11-2 in 2006 and he was named college football’s Coach of the Year. After the 2011 season, Schiano was hired to be head coach of the Buccaneers, but he was fired after his two seasons in Tampa Bay resulted in two last-place finishes in the NFC South. In 2020, Schiano became head coach at Rutgers again, but he hasn’t achieved the same kind of success in his second stint at Rutgers as he did in his first.
Now his status at Rutgers looks tenuous. He’s going to need to turn things around in a hurry to save his job.
Bengals defensive end Shemar Stewart returned to practice on Wednesday, ESPN’s Ben Baby reports.
It was Stewart’s first practice since hyperextending his left knee on the first practice of training camp July 29.
Stewart was carted off the field with what initially appeared to be a serious injury. However, an MRI showed no ligament damage, and Stewart has rehabbed his way back to the field five weeks later.
He was wearing a brace on his left knee on Wednesday.
The No. 17 overall pick of the 2025 draft, Stewart missed time last season with right ankle and left knee injuries. He appeared in eight games with five starts as a rookie.
Stewart recorded one sack with two tackles for loss, four quarterback hits and one pass defensed last year.
The Buccaneers are headed into Week 1 with a pair of question marks at the top of their wide receiver group.
Emeka Egbuka has been sidelined by a toe injury and Jalen McMillan has a knee injury that’s also kept him off the field recently. They were both working on the side during Wednesday’s practice, which is progress from past days and head coach Todd Bowles was asked about their outlook during a press conference.
“They’re headed in the right direction,” Bowles said. “I don’t know how fast. I’ll have a better gauge next week. They’re moving forward every day, so we’ll see next week.”
The Bucs will start issuing injury reports for their Week 1 game against the Bengals next Wednesday and the status of the two wideouts will be high on the list of concerns once they come out.
The Raiders naming Kirk Cousins their starting quarterback to open the 2026 season was hardly a surprise.
While Las Vegas had been projected to draft Fernando Mendoza at No. 1 overall for months, the team’s brass had said publicly that its preference was for a rookie quarterback to sit and learn behind a veteran.
But now that it’s official, Mendoza has become a member of a rare group of quarterbacks from recent years.
Mendoza is the first quarterback since Baker Mayfield in 2018 not to start Week 1 after being selected at No. 1 overall.
Mayfield’s situation was not particularly unusual at the time, as Jared Goff had been through the same thing in 2016.
But since then, Kyler Murray (2019), Joe Burrow (2020), Trevor Lawrence (2021), Bryce Young (2023), Caleb Williams (2024), and Cam Ward (2025) have all been their respective club’s Week 1 starter after being selected at No. 1 overall.
Since Matthew Stafford was selected at No. 1 overall in 2009, only Goff, Mayfield, and Mendoza have started the season as QB2. Sam Bradford (2010), Cam Newton (2011), Andrew Luck (2012), and Jameis Winston (2015) all started the season opener.
Mayfield made it into a game by Week 3, taking over for an injured Tyrod Taylor to lead the Browns to their first victory since 2016 with a 21-17 victory over the Jets. He took over as Cleveland’s starter the following week.
It took longer for Goff to ascend to QB1 for the Rams in 2016, as he began his tenure as Los Angeles’ starter in Week 11 with a 14-10 loss to Miami.
Mendoza’s development will remain a priority for the Raiders, even as he won’t receive starters’ reps in the regular season.
“Early work, late work. More meetings,” Kubiak said on Wednesday. “Plenty of time on the field between drills with [QBs] coach [Mike] Sullivan and [offensive coordinator] coach [Andrew] Janocko. Every player that is not starting the first game, that is helping us on the look team, we’re just trying to find every edge we can find to continue to get him better and his teammates better.”
Aside from those selected at No. 1 overall, there are plenty of QBs who haven’t started early and ended up being successful.
“I think there are so many examples both ways,” Kubiak said. “I think the most important thing with the quarterback room or any other position is to build competition within the room. That makes players so much better faster than coaching, when they have a guy in front of them that they can look up to and see how something’s done — that’s going to accelerate their growth.”
We’ll see when Mendoza becomes Las Vegas’ starter. If Cousins plays well and the Raiders are winning, that might not be until 2027. But history suggests Mendoza will be on the field sooner or later as a rookie.
Former NFL assistant coach Kippy Brown died this week, Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle reports. Brown was 71.
Brown spent 22 seasons as an NFL assistant, coaching for seven different teams. His final job was the wide receivers coach with the Seahawks on Pete Carroll’s staff from 2010-14. The Seahawks’ win in Super Bowl XLVIII gave Brown his only Super Bowl ring.
Brown was Jimmy Johnson’s offensive coordinator for two seasons with the Dolphins and served as the Lions’ associate head coach under Rod Marinelli during Detroit’s 0-16 season in 2008. He interviewed for the Texans’ head coaching job in 2006 after Dom Capers was fired, but Houston hired Gary Kubiak instead.
Brown coached Hall of Fame wide receiver Andre Johnson in his four seasons in Houston.
In addition to the Dolphins, Seahawks, Lions and Texans, Brown also coached with the Bucs, Jets and Packers.
Brown was head coach of the Memphis Maniax in the short-lived XFL in 2001.
As a player, Brown became the first Black quarterback to play at Memphis during his time there from 1974-77.
The Buccaneers claimed cornerback Kevin Knowles off waivers on Tuesday, according to the NFL’s personnel notice.
In a corresponding move, the Bucs waived undrafted free agent linebacker Caden Fordham.
Knowles made the Chiefs’ initial 53-player roster, but the team needed his roster spot on Monday after claiming two players, including linebacker Jack Pybrun, whom the Bucs waived on Sunday.
Knowles, 23, entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2025. He spent his rookie season with the Chiefs and played 13 games, seeing action on 82 defensive snaps and 231 on special teams.
He totaled 15 tackles and two passes defensed.
