NFL roundup: Chargers lose Rashawn Slater to injured reserve, Broncos reshuffle receivers and play calls, 49ers get Mykel Williams back
Three clubs, three different kinds of weeks. The Chargers lost the player they could least afford to lose. Denver lost a receiver and, quietly, a coordinator's job description. San Francisco got somebody back.
Start with Los Angeles. Placing T Rashawn Slater on injured reserve is the item here that actually changes a season. Left tackle is the second-most valuable job on an offense, and every run concept the Chargers like plus every deep shot the quarterback gets to take begins with the man on the blind side winning his rep. Losing Slater doesn't cost them one position. It taxes the tight ends and running backs who now stay in to chip, which means fewer bodies out in routes. My read: the Chargers' passing game gets shorter and the play-action shots that made them dangerous get rarer. The winner is whoever rushes the passer against them. The losers are the skill guys whose numbers quietly dip. Expect max-protection looks to become the norm, not the exception.
Denver's answer to its receiver room was to sign Lil'Jordan Humphrey to the active roster, put Pat Bryant on injured reserve, and add DB Amadi Ugochukwu to the practice squad. Note where Humphrey landed. The active roster is not the practice squad, and that distinction tells you the Broncos need him dressed on game day now. Bryant to injured reserve is the real cost, and it stings most for a young position group that was counting on reps. My take: Humphrey plays immediately and the practice-squad defensive back is a depth hedge, nothing more.
Then there's the stranger Broncos story. Offensive coordinator Davis Webb lost his playcalling role this week and called it "not ideal." He's right. His second sentence is the tell: "excited to see how we respond." That is what a coordinator says when the decision came from above him. Playcallers who surrender the sheet midseason rarely get it back, and a midweek change usually narrows a menu rather than expanding it, because whoever holds the sheet now leans on what's already installed. Tight ends and the run game are the usual beneficiaries. Denver's offense gets more conservative before it gets more efficient, and I'd rather be early on that than late.
San Francisco's news is the good kind. Defensive end Mykel Williams makes his 2026 debut Sunday against the Seahawks, less than a year after tearing his ACL and damaging the meniscus in his right knee. That is a fast return for a knee with two problems, and teams bring pass rushers back on snap counts for a reason. I expect Williams in a rotational role against Seattle, with the 49ers far more interested in what he looks like in December than in what he looks like Sunday. If he's playing a full complement of snaps in his first game back, I'm wrong, and pleasantly so.
The week's inactives list carried two names worth flagging: Kyle Monangai and Lamar Jackson, both out. Jackson is the one that scrambles lineups. There is no meaningful replacement for a quarterback at that tier in a single-starter league, so the managers who survive his absence are the ones who rostered a second starter or moved early instead of hoping. Monangai's absence matters mostly in deeper formats, where a starting running back disappearing from the active list is the difference between a full lineup and a zero.
Here's what the week adds up to. Only one of these three clubs is getting something back. Denver is subtracting twice, once from the receiver room and once from its offensive structure. Los Angeles is subtracting the piece that held its structure up. San Francisco is adding. The 49ers win the week and the Chargers lose it worst, because a left tackle on injured reserve never shows up as a hole on a stat sheet and shows up on every third down. My verdict, signed: the Slater move is the one from this roundup that gets graded in January.
