Week 2 starts with a TNF matchup between the Bills and Dolphins, AFC East contenders who struggled to win their home openers. In another divisional matchup, the Rams travel to Arizona, where the NFC West rivals will both try to recover from tough opening-day losses. The Bengals have a rough test in Arrowhead as they try to rebound from their opening-day upset loss to the Patriots. Giants and Commanders square off with both teams looking for their first win. And the Niners didn’t miss a beat without Christian McCaffrey. Also, Mike Greenberg’s prediction of the Jets being a Super-Bowl caliber team looks somewhat dubious after last night.
This week’s games. All spreads taken from DraftKings on Tuesday, September 10.
Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers head coach, once again shows himself to be a slimeball. Backup RB Jordan Mason told reporters that he was told he would be the starting RB on Friday. That created a problem, because the Niners listed starting RB Christian McCaffrey as " questionable" up until declaring him insctive just before their game on MNF.
And, of course, it is Jordan Mason who gets thrown under the bus for the Niners trying to hide injury information. Poor dude.
I’m not a fantasy football player, but I do know that McCaffrey is a top pick in most fantasy drafts/leagues. Waiting until two hours before kickoff to make that announcement caused a shitload of fantasy owners to scramble to find another player. Those who picked up Jordan Mason are happy they did so, but the 3rd-year pro only had 83 carries before Monday night.
The Packers are preparing for Malik Willis (who only joined the team two weeks ago) to start at QB for Sunday’s home opener against the Colts – however, they have not yet ruled out Jordan Love for this week.
In statements yesterday, coach Matt LaFleur was still a bit cryptic about the extent of Love’s injury (which is said to be some level of sprain or strain of his left MCL), but it sounds like (a) Love isn’t expected to miss an extended period of time, and (b) the Packers don’t appear to be looking at bringing in Ryan Tannehill (which has been rumored for months), or any other veteran.
It will, of course, be interesting to see how the team classifies Love on this week’s injury reports.
It may be that he misspoke, I don’t know what the truth is at this point.
I’m a Seattle fan and I’m all about getting on the “Kyle Shanahan is a slimeball” bandwagon (I still remember Shoegate!) but I’d say it’s plausible that Mason was only told that he’d get more playtime on Friday and is just misremembering. It’s easy to make a mistake like that, and get things mixed up in your memories, especially in the midst of hectic preparations for an opening game on primetime national TV. I’m not ready to say that the Niners broke a rule and I don’t see that Mason is getting too much flak for what he said, at least publicly. (Behind closed doors the coaches might be telling him to keep his mouth shut about stuff like that, who knows.)
I will say that Mason was a freaking beast last night and as usual, San Francisco is filthy with talent.
That, and this is one of those dirty open secrets that all teams stretch the truth on injury reports. The attitude seems to be that it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
Except mine, of course. They’re angels and blessed by divine providence.
Every head coach does that, and if they don’t they are stupid. Being cagey about player availability when talking to the media is just smart strategy. I mean, if a reporter asks a head coach how they plan to take on their opponent in the next game, they won’t detail their opening set of plays or explain how they expect to counter their strengths with specific tactics. That’s like playing Poker and then showing everyone how great or terrible your hand is.
Here you go. They are supposed to file reports for each day on which the team practices (typically Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), a “game status” report by 4pm Eastern on the day prior to their week’s game, and in-game reports (on players who get injured during the game).
For the practice reports, teams have to list which players have injuries, what the injury is (which seems to just amount to “which part of the body”), and their level of participation in that day’s practice (full, partial, did not practice).
For game status, they have three categories:
Here’s a link to the Packers’ injury report page, which shows both the daily practice reports, as well as the game status:
I tuned into Amazon right at the start of the game tonight. Anybody else digging the opening credit sequence, particularly the use of the Rare Earth version of “Get Ready?”
Mike McDaniel needs an intervention. Not about his play calling (although the clock management at the end of the half was atrocious), but rather his facial hair. Oof.
Tua still looked punch drunk 15 minutes later walking to the locker room. Dude is completely cooked. It’s criminal malpractice if the Dolphins don’t at least park him on the IR-DTR.
The hit that did it was incredibly mild as well. How is he not wearing a guardian cap? He’s got a couple hundred million reasons to.
