Seahawks Get Charbonnet Back, Colts Field Taylor Calls, Eagles Face the Harder Question
Three clubs, three unrelated kinds of October problem. Seattle got a body back. Indianapolis may be about to lose one. Philadelphia has a practice squad to prune and an argument it can't prune away.
Start with the good news in Seattle, because it's genuinely good. The Seahawks activated running back Zach Charbonnet off the PUP list and added him to the 53-man roster, and in the same batch of paperwork placed tight end Elijah Arroyo on injured reserve. Charbonnet hasn't played a snap this season. He scored 12 touchdowns in 2025, and his own description of where he's at was "taking it a day at a time." That phrase is doing real work. A back coming off PUP in late October isn't a full-go starter on day one, he's a guy who gets a defined role and builds from it. My read: Seattle's red-zone offense is the thing that improves here. Twelve touchdowns from a backfield spot is a role, not a fluke, and the Seahawks have been asking someone else to absorb those short-yardage and goal-line carries. What it costs is the other side of the transaction. Arroyo to IR thins the tight end room on the exact day the backfield gets deeper, and the replacement snaps at tight end go to whoever Seattle trusts to block in 12 personnel. Net positive for the Seahawks. Not a free one.
Indianapolis is the opposite story. ESPN reports several teams are interested in running back Jonathan Taylor as the trade deadline approaches. The consensus read will be that the Colts are opening a fire sale. I don't buy that yet, and here's why: interest is not the same as availability, and a report of interest usually means the Colts took a call and did not hang up immediately. That's leverage, not liquidation. The question that actually matters for Indianapolis is what comes back. A picks-only return is a rebuild move. A return that includes a player who can start this month is a retool, and it's the harder sell to a locker room. My read: the Colts should set the price as a roster-reset price and be perfectly happy to keep Taylor if nobody meets it, because a team that trades its best offensive player for futures has told its own building what it thinks of the season. I expect Indianapolis to hold unless someone pays starter-caliber value. If a deal does land, it will be the trade that defines how the Colts' front office wants to be judged.
Philadelphia's transaction line is the quiet one. The Eagles signed running back Jaydon Blue, guard Evan Neal and linebacker Anfernee Orji to the practice squad and waived tight end E.J. Jenkins. Practice squad churn is mostly noise, with one exception: offensive line depth is not noise in Philadelphia, it's doctrine, and stashing a guard tells you the Eagles would rather develop a blocker than carry a spare tight end. Waiving Jenkins is a bet that the tight end room holds. I'd expect Jenkins to get a call elsewhere or land back on the practice squad if he clears. Low stakes, but the priority is legible: Philadelphia protects the line first.
Now the part that won't go away. Super Bowl champion Leonard Fournette called the Eagles selfish for letting Jalen Hurts play with a blood clot that later reached his lungs, and asked the question that makes the story impossible to ignore: what if he would've died?
My verdict: the alarm is correct and the label is aimed at the wrong target. "Selfish" is a claim about motive, and motive is the one thing nobody outside that building can establish. What's worth establishing is process. Who cleared Hurts, on what evidence, and what the protocol required at each step. That's the question that protects the next player, and it's the question I expect to land on the medical staff and the league's review process rather than on a coach's character. If reporting eventually shows the Eagles overrode a medical recommendation to keep a franchise quarterback on the field, Fournette's word becomes the polite one and I'll say so. Until then the accusation is loud, and the answer the Eagles owe is a timeline, not a denial.