NFL Roundup: Eagles Minus Hurts, Patriots Lose Moses and Doubs, Titans Sit Taylor
Sunday's league rundown has a theme nobody would pick: who wasn't available.
Start in Philadelphia, because that's the item with real weight. The Eagles played without Jalen Hurts against Carolina, and no reason for the absence is attached in the reporting, which is its own worry. What the game looked like without him: Bryce Young 20-of-39 for 281 yards and two touchdowns, Chuba Hubbard 28 carries for 120 yards and a score. The Hubbard line is the one I keep staring at. A missing quarterback explains a scoreboard. A running back getting 28 carries explains a defense that never got off the field. My read is that Philadelphia's offense runs on Hurts extending drives with his legs, and without that the Eagles' defense spent the afternoon absorbing long series. One week of this is survivable. A month of it changes the NFC.
New England's afternoon against the Jets cost it two starters. Offensive tackle Morgan Moses suffered an ankle injury in the second quarter and exited, and that's the kind of loss you cannot patch with a practice-squad call-up. Moses is the veteran on that front, the guy whose job is to make the protection call correct before the snap. I expect the Patriots to add an offensive tackle to the active roster before next week, and I expect protection to be the story of that game no matter who is standing at quarterback.
Same game, crueler shape: Romeo Doubs got hurt on a 42-yard touchdown catch against the Jets. Scoring from 42 and leaving the field on the same rep is the worst trade in football. Doubs is the piece that forces a safety to respect the deep third, so his absence changes the geometry of New England's offense more than his target volume suggests. The next receiver up inherits vertical routes he hasn't been running, and I'd bet the Patriots' passing game gets shorter and quicker until Doubs is back. That's a scheme tax, not a depth-chart note.
Tennessee made cornerback Alontae Taylor inactive against the Colts, and a team source told ESPN it was a coach's decision, not an injury. That is a benching wearing a roster designation. Coaches don't sit a starting corner in October for nothing, and the immediate beneficiary is Indianapolis' passing game, which gets a secondary missing a body it planned on. Watch Taylor's snap count next week. A full workload means the message landed. Anything less means this is a permanent depth-chart change and the Titans should say so out loud.
Atlanta's Kendal Daniels hurt his neck on a tackle against the Bears and was hospitalized. I'm not building a football angle on that. Hospitalization after a neck injury is the category of news where the depth chart waits until we know more about the person. The Falcons are thinner in the secondary tonight. That's the least interesting sentence in this roundup, and it should be.
Here's my verdict, and it's a lopsided one. Philadelphia's item is the only one that moves a division, and it only moves one if Hurts' absence runs past a week. New England's two losses will be felt fastest, because offensive line and vertical threat are the two things a roster cannot fake for a month. Tennessee's is the one I want answered by Wednesday. Coach's decisions have a habit of becoming patterns, and this is the first one that tells us what the Titans think of their own secondary.