It’s Week 3 of the NFL pre=season and for most if not all teams that means the starters will play more than in any other pre-season game. Of course with more playing time there’s more chance of an injury happening and last night two playoff contenders lost a couple pf important offensive pieces.
Now we’re waiting on confirmation of his actually injury, but early reports are that New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman torn his ACL in Friday nights game against the Detroit Lions. The Patriots have an MRI scheduled for Edelman today to find out the extent of the injury.
The oddest thing about Edelman’s injury was that it was a non-contact injury. About two minutes into the game last night Edelman ran what’s called an “in-break: route. Edelman beat Lions linebacker Jarrad Davis and caught the football at the Detroit 29 yard-line. Edelman turned up field and planted his right foot into the ground or I guess turf would be a better word to avoid Lions safety Tavon Wilson and lunged forward for extra yardage like we’ve seen many receivers do at the end of a reception. As Edelman hit the ground he almost immediately grab the back of his right knee. Now Edelman was able to walk off the field under his own power, but was noticeably limping. After a few minutes of being looked at by the Patriots medical staff on the sidelines Edelman was carted to the locker room.
If Edelman is lost for the season the Patriots will have to find a way to replace his 98 catches and 1106 receiving yards from last season.
Just this off season Edelman signed a two year extension $6.5 million dollar extension to stay with the Patriots until though 2019.
No matter if Edelman miss the entire season or just a few games the Patriots will look to the newly acquired Bradin Cooks as well as Chris Hogan, Danny Amendola and Malcolm Mitchell to fill his role.
The other injury Friday night was to Kansas City Chiefs starting running back Spencer Ware, but reports are it’s not as serious as first thought. Ware went down in the Chiefs first offensive series of their game last night against the Seattle Seahawks as he was fighting for extra yards on a swing pass.
As the played end Ware tried to get up, but ended up going back down to the ground grabbing his right knee. Ware was unable to put any weight on his injured knee and ended up having to be carted off of the field.
The original report was that Ware had torn the PCL ligament in his right knee, but Kansas City head coach Andy Reid said that Ware’s X-rays where negative. The Chiefs have scheduled an MRI for Ware on Saturday.
Ware took over as Kansas City’s #1 running back last season. He carried the football 214 times for 921 yards last season. Ware is also a big factor in the Chiefs passing offense. Ware added 33 receptions for 446 yards last season.
In the pre-season Ware has been splitting carries with rookie 3rd round pick Kareem Hunt and you have to think that if Ware is going to miss any time that Hunt would take over as the #1 running back for Kansas City. The Chiefs do have a couple of veteran running backs on their roster in Charcandrick West and C.J. Spiller to turn to if needed.
Now earlier in the week Jacksonville Jaquars head coach Doug Marrone made it a point to say that the teams starting quarterback position was “up for grabs”.
After Chad Henne made the start in the Jaquars Week 3 pre-season game against the Carolina Panthers it looked like he’d be the guy under center on September 10th for Jacksonville’s Week 1 game against the Houston Texans. After Thursday nights pre-season game Marrone said he wasn’t ready to name a starter, but neither quarterback looked great in the game. Henne went 8 for 14 for 73 yards in the five series he played and Blake Bortles went 12 for 16 for 125 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception in the seven series he played. So after not being ready to announce a starter after the game Marrone turned right around on Friday and said that Bortles will be the starter for Jacksonville Week 1.
According to the team’s announcement, Bortles has only been named the starter for the season opener and was not declaratively named the Jaquars’ starting quarterback for the entire season.
As it seems as though the Jaquars have no confidence in their quarterbacks it brings to mind the one burning quarterback question that’s floating around the NFL. Would the Jaquars sign Colin Kaepernick? Now in a radio interview before Thursday’s pre-season game Jacksonville’s owner Shad Kahn said that he would “absolutely” be OK with signing Kaepernick if recommended by Tom Coughlin and the teams coaching staff.
Now Kaepernick has met with a couple of other NFL teams, but has yet to receive a contract offer. Khan’s comments at least provide a possible opening for Kaepernick to return to an NFL team, but that move appears to be a long way off from happening.
Well I guess tonight is the big night if you’ve been drawn into the circus that was the set up to the Floyd Mayweather Colin McGregor fight.
The weigh-in was yesterday and both fighters came in under the 154 pound weight limit. In believe that earlier in the week there was some talk and it may have been started by Mayweather that McGregor wasn’t going to make weight. but he did. McGregor weighed in at 153 pounds and I found it interesting that his trainer said he’d be back up to almost 170 pounds by the time of the fight.
Now I’m in the group that doesn’t care about this fight at all. Where do you stand? Will you be buying the pay per view and watching at home either by yourself or maybe you’re having a viewing party? Will you be going out to watch the fight? Maybe your local watering hole is showing the fight. You might also be one of the people going to watch it on the closed circuit television broadcast. Who knows maybe you’re in Las Vegas right now and you’re going to be going to the fight tonight. Any way you watch it this fight is going to make a ton of money, but in the end will it be worth it. I never bought into the hype and I can’t justify pay the price to get it on pay per view, but if you are going to watch the fight let me know in the comments below how you’ll be viewing it.
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