NFL Notes: Eagles Design, Monday Injury Report Roundup, More

While Matt Rooney and I were in the virtual studio waiting to start the BN Bears Postgame Show, I watched the end of the Eagles overtime victory over the Commanders. The Commanders took the undefeated Eagles to overtime, and I was impressed at how well Sam Howell and Washington played against the Eagles, especially at the end of the game. But the Eagles aren’t worried about a tight affair with the Commanders. They’re just getting started.

  • Being the defending NFC champions, the Eagles have been in prime time to start the season. We’ve seen them in a national spot in two of the four weeks so far, and in both of those games, the Eagles looked like a team that could win the NFC again. And not necessarily because they’re blowing teams out of the water. It’s more so because they win in the trenches and do better each game.
  • They’re like a car warming up in the driveway during the winter months, and wide receiver A.J. Brown says that’s by design. “We’re still putting it together,” Brown said. “Nobody wants to be playing their best football right now. But we’re striving each and every day to fix the little things and head in the right direction. We want to play good. Don’t get me wrong. We want to play really well but we don’t want to play our best football right now in October. These are moments that we’re learning from, these are experiences that we’re learning from. This was a game in overtime that if it happens again, nobody will blink because we’re put in these tough situations. It’s a learning experience.”
  • Brown’s comments confirmed what I saw from the Eagles and plenty of teams around the NFL: a slow rollout. NFL teams are starting to treat the season’s first leg as a defacto preseason. Most NFL teams have gone in the direction of valuing joint practices and controlled environments over preseason games. I think there’s something there that could work (but we’ll discuss that another day). Still, it’s making the preseason game reps almost entirely nonexistent for the players who matter. I took a look at last years schedule, and I realized that September is the new August.
  • Eagles
    (Photo by Mike Carlson/Getty Images)

  • The 2022 season was littered with fraudulent starts in both directions. The Bengals started the season 0-2; they went 12-2 the rest of the way and made another AFC title game appearance. The Jaguars began the season 2-7 before winning the AFC South. Detroit opened the season 1-6 before falling short of a playoff berth by way of a tiebreaker on the season’s final day. I’m not saying that falling five games under .500 is the ideal situation; there are some more extreme data points than others.
  • Still, more and more NFL teams, especially teams that know where they will be in January, are using September and October as a long runway for their eventual takeoff. All that to say, let’s not be prisoners of the moment with some of the performances that we’ve seen in the season’s first month.
  • Let’s go over some Sunday injuries and what we know about them this morning. We’ll start with the Chargers, where Justin Herbert finished Sunday’s victory over the Raiders with a heavily taped hand with a splint due to what is believed to be a dislocated or broken finger on his non-throwing hand. It is Herbert’s non-throwing hand, and the Chargers are heading into the bye week, so no major alarm bells are going off on that front right now.
  • NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport said this morning on NFL Network that Patriots pass rusher Matthew Judon suffered a tear in his biceps tendon that will keep him sidelined for an extended period. He also noted that Giants running back Saquon Barkley will likely miss another game today when New York takes on the Seahawks on Monday Night Football. Barkley has been dealing with an ankle injury suffered in Week 2. He missed the team’s Thursday night game against the 49ers and has been limited in practice since and will likely miss tonight as well.
  • Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White was carted off the field during yesterday’s lopsided victory over the Dolphins, and it has since been confirmed that he suffered an Achilles tear and will miss the rest of the season.
  • Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins suffered a rib fracture in the Bengals’ loss to the Titans. Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett sustained a knee injury that will cost him some time. According to Ian Rapoport, Pickett’s knee injury isn’t seen as season-ending, but there is concern over damage to the meniscus, which could keep him out for a few weeks. As for Higgins, the Bengals have two more games and then a bye week, so there’s a chance we won’t see Tee Higgins again until Week 8.
  • Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans suffered a hamstring injury that appears to be minor and Myles Garrett rolled his ankle in the Browns loss to the Ravens.
  • The Chase Claypool situation continues to get uglier, and at this point, I would assume that he’s played his last game with the Chicago Bears.
  • More on the Bears latest embarrassing self-sabotage performance, this time against the Denver Broncos:
  • written by

    Patrick grew up in Chicago's Bridgeport and Garfield Ridge neighborhoods before moving to the Western Suburbs of Chicago before eventually relocating to the Las Vegas area with his family in 2023. He started with Bleacher Nation in 2021 and has spent time as a Staff Writer and on the Chicago Blackhawks beat. He is currently a writer and editor at Bleacher Nation covering the Chicago Bears and the NFL at large and the author of the Bleacher Nation Newsletter. Patrick is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA).

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