NFL - NEWS & NOTES

Todays NFL Action...

 

49ers running back Elijah Mitchell did not play against the Packers on Friday night and he’s not expected to play in the next two preseason outings either.

Mitchell was limited to open training camp because he was coming off of knee surgery and, per multiple reports, a hamstring injury is expected to keep him out of game action for the rest of the summer. Head coach Kyle Shanahan didn’t confirm that after facing Green Bay, but did say that Mitchell and cornerback Charvarius Ward will be out of next week’s game at least.


“Both of them had soft tissue injuries,” Shanahan said, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com. “They won’t be available next week. We’ll see the week after that.”

Mitchell ran for 963 yards and five touchdowns in 11 games as a rookie. Jeff Wilson also sat out on Friday, which left Trey Sermon, Tyrion Davis-Price, JaMycal Hasty, and Jordan Mason as the team’s running backs.

PFT

 

Sure, nice rollout by Ridder and great throw on the run. But quite frankly, I wish the NFL tweet had put the spotlight on the receiver working his way back through traffic and getting the body positioning to make the catch so that the defender had no chance to break up the play.

The receiver isn't just an undrafted rookie - he stumped the truck. (He was the only legit name that the NFL-N truck didn't have. Ian Rapaport had also named one, but his name had actually gone back to school and wasn't draft eligible.) And I think he might have just won himself a spot on the practice squad.

So... huge shout out to Jared Bernhardt. He's the best lacrosse player in the NFL (for real), and he just made the game-winning catch in his preseason debut.

 

Cleveland's offensive line is limping after its preseason opener.

Browns coach Kevin Stefanski told reporters Saturday that center Nick Harris is "likely" going to need season-ending surgery for a right knee injury he sustained during Friday night's preseason win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Stefanski added that the team is still gathering information on Harris' injury before coming to that conclusion.

Harris was carted off the field during the first quarter of the Browns' win over the Jags. Entering his third season, Harris was slated to be Cleveland's starting center following the exit of longtime Brown JC Tretter, who remains a free agent.

Veteran Ethan Pocic is second up on the Browns' unofficial depth chart at center while rookies Dawson Deaton and Brock Hoffman vie for a spot on the roster.

NFL.com

 

Been looking at the Steelers vs Seahawks game and Im impressed with the Steelers. McFarland looks real good and the QB play by Trubs and Rudolph has been better than I expected. Solid defensive showing also... They look well coached and ready. Tomlin and Flores along with the others have this team executing. It is the Seahawks tho, but still, a nice start to things.

 

I jinxed them... My apology.

 

Pickett time!

 

All Pickett does is come in and go 5 for 5 with a TD... welcome to the NFL.

 

I'm looking at the box scores over at CBS. What does FPTS mean?

 

Fantasy points, I believe.

 

Tretter, as mentioned is still available. They weren't willing to pay him 7.9M before. I bet they are now.

 

Everyone going nuts over the way rookie qbs played against vanilla Ds and guys that will be backups, practice squad or bagging groceries.

 

You don’t fuck with tradition

 

Guess at least its not the running backs wasnt there one a few years ago lead the preseason in yards everyone went nuts and then during the regular season he had less yards than he did in preseason.

 

Trubisky didn’t play against anyone special. So what are you saying. Pickett looked really good for his first action as a pro.

 

Ridder did too. And if you watch the replay of the game, Detroit wasn't strictly vanilla on defense. They were doing stunts, twists, and six man blitzes.

From what I saw, he still needs to work on consistency in his mechanics, so there's zero QB controversy about having him redshirt behind Mariota. But he's clearly better than a lot of the backup QBs we've had over the last 15-20 years.

Then again, that's not exactly a high hurdle to clear...

 

DeVonta Smith back at practice for the Eagles...



Wide receiver DeVonta Smith was back on the Eagles’ practice field on Sunday.

Smith injured his groin on August 4 and spent more than a week recovering from that injury before returning to full participation to close out the weekend. EJ Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Smith got a lot of work on his first day back and made an impressive catch between a pair of defensive backs during the session.


After it was over, the wideout shared how he kept his head in the game while he was on the mend.

“When you’re out, you’re still here,” Smith said. “You’re still seeing everything, you’re still doing everything with the team. You’re out, but you’re not out. You still gotta be engaged. When you come back, things are going to be faster because you haven’t been out there in so long.”

Smith’s return gives the Eagles a full complement of receivers as they move into a week featuring joint practices with the Browns ahead of a preseason game. There’s no plan in place for playing Smith in that game and solid practice sessions may give the Eagles all they need to see of him against an opposing defense.

PFT