The Patriots‘ revolving receiver cast may be set for more adjustments. Mohamed Sanu may well be battling a high ankle sprain, according to Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston. While that is not confirmed, the recent trade acquisition did not practice Wednesday and is listed on New England’s injury report. A high ankle sprain would stand to sideline Sanu for multiple games. The Pats have cycled through numerous receiver combinations this season, with Julian Edelman being the only constant. Phillip Dorsett is in the Pats’ concussion protocol, meaning Edelman’s supporting cast against the Cowboys may be fronted by rookies N’Keal Harry and Jakobi Meyers.
Here is the latest from around the NFL, moving first to a player not currently in the league.
- Antonio Brown launched a countersuit against Britney Taylor, the first of two women to make sexual misconduct claims against the free agent wide receiver. Taylor filed a civil suit against Brown earlier this year, alleging sexual assault, and Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com reports Brown’s case will center around defamation and interference with NFL contract and endorsement opportunities. Brown remains hopeful the NFL will clear him soon; he met with the league last week. But a recent report gave Brown a long-odds chance of playing again this season.
- Mitchell Trubisky was a full participant at Bears practice Wednesday, despite being removed from Sunday night’s game with a hip injury. Matt Nagy said he does not intend to bench his starter and plans to play him this week against the Giants. “We want him to be out there this week as the starter,” Nagy said, via J.J. Stankevitz of NBC Sports Chicago. “I’m hoping that’s the case. … These types of injuries, you get to a point where they are literally day to day and it becomes about where you’re at with the pain and how we manage that.”
- Brandon Allen has helped spark the Broncos‘ offense, but the team would stand to benefit from Drew Lock debuting soon. Vic Fangio added an interesting stance Wednesday, indicating he does not think it’s “vitally important” the rookie passer plays this season, via Mike Klis of 9News. However, the Broncos do plan to activate Lock from IR either next week or in Week 14, per Klis. Denver selected Lock in Round 2 but saw its Joe Flacco investment fail, leading to more uncertainty at a long-troublesome position for the franchise. The Broncos could again be linked to top quarterbacks in the 2020 draft, just as they were in 2018 and ’19.
- One of the Falcons‘ IR-return slots will go toward a punter. Longtime punter Matt Bosher returned to practice, Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com notes (on Twitter). Atlanta’s ninth-year punter cannot return to action until Week 13.
- After placing fullback Nick Bawden on IR, the Lions worked out several fullbacks. Tommy Bohanon, Derrick Coleman, Tre Madden, Aaron Ripkowski auditioned for the Lions, per Sirius XM’s Adam Caplan (on Twitter).
Jesus, just bring back AB.
Exactly
It’s actually irrelevant how Nagy decides to handle Trubisky at this point because he has effectively destroyed his QBs confidence.
Dude, enough of the QB coddling. Trubisky is terrible, despite Nagy’s conservative, vanilla offense and playcalling. This ain’t the QB school, where you “learn” how to play football. It’s the NFL. The Chicago Bears. If you can’t read defenses, find open receivers, and throw a catchable ball, it doesn’t take two years to figure out you can’t play. They should have never drafted him in the first place. He couldn’t even win the starting job at freaking North Carolina until his last year there (13 games as a starter). They passed over Mahomes and Watson to draft this clown, despite EVERY single scouting report indicating how mediocre Trubisky is. He literally does nothing well. The fact that the Bears could have kept their draft picks and drafted Mahomes makes me want to vomit.
For starters, there have been several college QBs that emerged late and then went on to have successful pro careers. Every single scout dished Trubisky? Nonsense. The reality is that Trubisky might have developed into a better than average QB had a team other than Chicago drafted him. As everyone knows, the Bears strength has long been developing linebacker prospects. Their track record on developing QBs has been quite dismal. What other coach would have taken a 2nd overall draft pick and undermined his confidence by placing him on the depth chart behind a bum like Mike Glennon?
It’s also quite likely that Mahomes and Watson would only be about half as far along on the learning curve had they been drafted by Chicago. Nagy really isn’t much more than a glorified Marc Trestman.
Nope, not buying your bs. Drafting a franchise QB isn’t magic. You scout potential first round picks, and draft the best one available. That said, there was no good reason for the Bears to give up multiple draft picks just to move up ONE spot and draft a QB nobody thought was a 1st round pick. And yeah, ALL the projected draft and scouting reports had Mahomes and Watson over Mitch. Race may have played a role, since the McCaskey’s never draft black(ish) QBs, but we’ll never know. Regardless, Pace ignored the glaring mediocrity to EVERYBODY with a clue saw in Trubisky (even Colin Cowherd for #%&@ sake). I’m angry because the Bears do dumb ish like this all.the.time. Bottom line: He’s not a starting QB (poor mechanics, poor accuracy (most uncatchable thrown ball statistically in the entire NFL), poor reads, lowest completion rate, and Mitch is NOT a winner. You can try to blame the coaching or the offensive line, snd everyone else on the damn team if you want. It won’t change what I’ve said about him. You can’t learn talent, and you can’t learn skills that should have been readily apparent before he was drafted 2nd overall. He should have stayed in college.
Yes, the Bears were foolish to give up draft value to trade up one spot and yes the Bears frequently do dumb things, but skills can be learned and bad habits corrected, which is why coaches are paid good money. If Trubisky has shown little improvement from college then some of that responsibility belongs to the people hired to coach him.
Dude, seriously? Do you know how hard it is to play QB in the NFL? The reason why the draft process is so exhaustive is because teams don’t have the luxury of wasting time and money on some noodle-armed thrower who can’t effectively play the position. Sure, there is a learning curve to some extent. But you can’t teach arm strength, mental acuity, agility, and confidence to someone who doesn’t have it. It is innate, and emergent much sooner than a rookie season in the NFL. Mitch started 13 games at UNC. 13! Nobody looked at his game film and thought “here’s a #2 pick… except for Ryan Pace!