NFL

Johnson left practice early Tuesday to get treatment for an apparent strain. Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said the 24-year-old wideout is dealing with a groin injury. The severity of the injury is unclear as Bowles said it’s too early to tell if any of the team’s top four wide receivers would miss next week’s joint practices with the Jets. Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka, and Jalen McMillan also missed practice out of maintenance and precaution. With Johnson and David Sills also exiting practice, rookie Ted Hurst saw a boost in practice reps.

Ertz tore his ACL in Week 14 last season with the Commanders. Schefter reports the 35-year-old is ready for football activities and was catching passes from Andrew Luck at Stanford on Tuesday. He caught 50 passes for 504 yards and four touchdowns last season, seeing at least 70 targets in each of the last two seasons with the Commanders. Ertz has expressed a desire to continue playing and Schefter reports the veteran is “expected to be ready to sign in mid-August.” His top-15 fantasy tight end days are behind him, but Ertz can certainly offer some help in the tight end landscape this season, pending his landing spot.

Fox Sports’ Greg Auman reported the three lead Buccaneers receivers got the day off Tuesday. For Godwin, it is a veteran maintenance day as he aims to open the season fully healthy; expect him to see more maintenance days heading into preseason. Egbuka and McMillan are dealing with lower-body soreness and were held out of practice out of precaution. Ultimately, no major injury concerns as the Bucs play it safe with their top three wideouts in training camp.

Wolfe said Browns head coach Todd Monken told him the team will start “one quarterback the first preseason game, the other one will start the second one, and most likely the leader of the competition is going to start the third.” It sounds like Monken is planning to give both Watson and Sanders a chance to compete and build chemistry in camp and preseason before determining a leader in the quarterback race. The Browns’ quarterback room is one of the few truly dead-even quarterback competitions occurring in camp and fantasy managers can stay tuned to preseason play to assess if Watson or Sanders has the edge to start Week 1.

Bonitto suffered a lower leg injury in drills Tuesday and did not return to practice. He limped off under his own power surrounded by the Broncos’ training staff. Payton said he had “no updates” on the 26-year-old pass rusher but that Bonitto will be “fine.” It is unclear how severe his injury is, but based on Payton’s response, it seems Bonitto will be fine in the long term and may only miss some camp time.

Witherspoon was placed on the reserve/retired list Tuesday, just a few months after initially signing with the Commanders. The 31-year-old entered the league with the 49ers as a 2017 third-rounder. Witherspoon tallied 60 passes defended and 13 interceptions over his career, spending four seasons in San Francisco, two with the Steelers, and the past three seasons with the Rams.

We weren’t expecting a major target share for TeSlaa anyway in this offense, and he makes his living making contested catches, but it’s still a little disappointing that he hasn’t taken more of a step forward from his rookie season so far. TeSlaa is probably only a consideration in deeper leagues at this time.

He missed four training camp practices while dealing with the injury, but it seems that this won’t be a long-term hinderance. He can be drafted with confidence, or at least as much confidence as you can find in backs in a timeshare, in fantasy leagues.

Part of this stems from asking Jaxson Dart to “run a more traditional offense,” meaning more under-center snaps for the second-year pro as opposed to last year’s shotgun-heavy offense that Brian Daboll built while heavily borrowing from the Ole Miss playbook. Another part of it in Duggan’s estimation is that the Giants pass rush has been “dominant” early in training camp. “You can’t even imagine how much there is for a quarterback to operate with, especially in a new offense,” John Harbaugh said. “He’s done an outstanding job.” It’s probably too soon to be overly worried about Dart this year, but he does profile as a risky fantasy pick in Matt Nagy’s new offense.

They also worked out Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Hassan Haskins and Kylin James and settled on Blackshear of the group. Blackshear has been a worthwhile return specialist and may have a chance to handle that role with the Lions.