Lamar Jackson's Near-Miss, Puka Nacua's Calf, and the NFL's Sunday Morning Injury Carousel
Ian Rapoport noted the Rams are confident Puka Nacua will play.
Sunday morning in the NFL is less about football and more about watching fantasy managers and bettors collectively hit refresh on Ian Rapoport's timeline to see if their weekend is ruined before noon.
This week's edition of the pregame injury dump gave us a mixed bag of relief and lingering dread. According to Rapoport and Mike Garafolo on NFL GameDay Kickoff, is officially back for the , the are confident will play, and Lamar Jackson is circling next week for his return.
Jackson was apparently close to suiting up this week, which is a fun piece of trivia that does absolutely nothing for the right now. They just dropped an ugly 13-10 rock fight to the without him. Being "close" to playing is the NFL equivalent of telling your boss you were close to finishing the report. It does not change the fact that the offense looked completely lost.
Then there is Nacua, who popped up on the injury report Thursday after tweaking his calf in practice. The Rams are reportedly confident he will go against the . Nacua has spent his entire young career treating his body like a rental car, playing through various knee and rib issues, so a Thursday calf strain was never going to keep him off the field.
If you are holding a receiving prop ticket on Nacua, you are just praying the calf holds up past the first quarter. The guy is a target magnet, but soft-tissue injuries are the ultimate wild card for in-game usage.
returning for is the most straightforward news of the bunch. The Buccaneers need his chaotic energy back under center, especially with their offense looking entirely different when he is not out there throwing 50-50 balls like they are going out of style.
The weirdest note from the morning is what Rapoport called a "curious situation" surrounding left tackle Josh Simmons. The lineman has been dealing with a bulging disc in his lower back, missing four straight games, and recently landed on injured reserve. When an NFL insider calls an offensive line injury "curious," it usually means the medical timeline and the team's patience are no longer in the same zip code.
For now, the immediate stakes are set. and Nacua are ready to impact today's slate, while Jackson gets an extra week to heal up before a massive divisional clash with the . As for Simmons, we will just have to wait and see what "curious" actually means in .