NFL Week 7: Lamar Jackson Out, Giants Lose Their Middle, Eagles Thin at Receiver
Saturday's injury reports did more damage than any Sunday matchup will. Lamar Jackson is out, the Giants gutted the middle of their defense, and the Eagles head into a Cowboys game short a receiver.
Start in Baltimore, because that's where the week turned. The Ravens downgraded Lamar Jackson to out with a high ankle sprain, and Tyler "Snoop" Huntley starts against the Bengals. A high ankle sprain is the specific injury a scrambling quarterback cannot play through; the ankle is the mechanism that makes him him. Huntley runs, so the concept survives in reduced form. The margin doesn't. Baltimore's offense becomes a grind-it-out operation against a Cincinnati team built to score, and I expect the Bengals to crowd the box and dare Huntley to beat them outside the numbers. My call is Cincinnati, and I'd be wrong if Huntley keeps turning third-and-6 into third-and-2 and the Ravens control the clock.
If Jackson's absence is the loudest news, the Giants' is the most expensive. New York ruled out tight end Theo Johnson and safety Jevon Holland for the trip to Houston, announced Saturday. Johnson's loss thins the middle of the passing game on a day the Giants need chain-movers. Holland's matters more: Houston throws between the hashes, and a safety who can't dress is a safety who can't disguise. That's a coverage shell with a hole in it.
Then the haymaker. Tremaine Edmunds is done for the season with a torn chest muscle, per ESPN's Jordan Raanan. He leads the Giants with 50 tackles and wears the green dot. The second part is what should scare New York. Green dot means he makes the calls, so the Giants are now replacing their leading tackler and their defensive quarterback in the same week, on a short trip, against a Texans offense that will test communication with motion and tempo. My read: whoever takes the headset is the most important player on that field Sunday, and I don't expect a clean afternoon.
Philadelphia's version is smaller but not nothing. The Eagles ruled out receiver Dontayvion Wicks against Dallas after three straight DNP designations during the week. Three DNPs isn't a game-time decision. That's a player who never got on the field, which means the Eagles knew early and had all week to build the plan without him. Against a Cowboys secondary that wants to press, the Eagles are now asking more of the top of the depth chart and more of the tight ends in the middle. Wicks' absence won't decide that game. It does trim the margin in a rivalry where margins are usually three points.
In San Francisco, the discipline ledger came out lopsided. Fred Warner was fined by the NFL for a hit on a defenseless player in Week 6. Malik Mustapha was not fined for his Week 6 plays. The Warner fine is the league doing what it always does with a downhill linebacker in traffic; it won't change how the 49ers deploy him and it shouldn't. He's the best player on that defense and fining him a game check is a rounding error against the value of him arriving at the ball carrier at full speed. The line I care about is Mustapha walking free. The league graded his Week 6 tape as clean, and for a young safety trying to establish that he belongs in the box, that's tacit permission to keep playing that way. San Francisco gets a fine and a green light in the same memo.
Across the rest of the league the game statuses read like a normal late-October Saturday, which is to say brutal. My verdict on the week: Jackson's ankle costs Baltimore a division game it can't get back in December, and the Giants' defensive communication problem follows them past Houston. The Ravens survive this. I'm not sure the Giants do.