NFL offenses spent September figuring out what they actually have. A handful of teams already know.
The Jets took Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq with the 16th pick, the second of their three first-round selections, and the word that follows him now is "uncoverable." That is the rare rookie-tight-end outcome. First-round tight ends usually get drafted on projection and paid off later. Kyle Pitts went fourth overall in 2021 and spent years being explained rather than used. T.J. Hockenson went eighth in 2019 and was a blocker with hands before he was a receiver. Sadiq skipping that apprenticeship makes the pick look less like a luxury and more like the only way New York was getting a separator in the middle of the field. My read: the Jets should stop treating him as a bonus and start building third down around him. A team holding three first-rounders can afford to be wrong once. They aren't wrong here.
The Rams don't intend to limit Puka Nacua's workload Sunday against the Eagles, per ESPN's sources. That's the loudest sentence out of Los Angeles this week. Teams say no pitch count all the time and then hand a guy half the snaps, so the language matters less than what it signals about role. Nacua isn't returning as a decoy or a slot-only option. He's returning as the volume receiver the rest of the formation is built on, and Philadelphia has to plan for the whole menu instead of the appetizer. A double-digit target game is the expectation, not the hope.
Brian Schottenheimer stood in front of the Cowboys locker room and took accountability for Sunday's late-game loss to the Ravens. Good. That's also the easy part. Coaches survive in this league when their late-game management stops being a topic, and Dallas just handed away a game on the margins in a season where the margins are the entire season. The next one-score finish is the referendum. If it looks the same, the accountability meeting was theater.
Los Angeles also churned the bottom of the roster, signing wide receiver Alex Bachman and defensive tackle Larrell Murchison, then elevating linebacker Barryl Peterson III and defensive back Cam Lampkin from the practice squad. Nobody's buying a jersey over this. October elevations are how a front office buys injury insurance it hopes never to cash, and Bachman's spot is receiver depth for a week when the receiving room gets fuller. Murchison is interior beef. These moves get graded in December, not today.
My call on Sunday: Nacua plays a full snap share, clears 100 yards, and the Rams beat the Eagles because of it.
