South Notes: Godwin, Titans, Texans, Jaguars

With the Titans dominating NFL newscycles this week, here is the latest from their division and an update on one of the NFC South’s best players.

• Chris Godwin‘s latest injury-induced absence may well extend beyond Sunday. The Buccaneers wide receiver will miss Week 4 with a mild hamstring pull, per NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). Because the Bucs face the Bears on Thursday to kick off Week 5, the team may be hard-pressed to have Godwin avoid missing two games. Godwin missed Tampa Bay’s Week 2 game because of a concussion. Coming into his contract year, Godwin had only missed two career games.
• The shoulder injury Taylor Lewan suffered against the Vikings last week is not considered serious, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets. He was iffy to face the Steelers, prior to the game’s postponement, so odds are certainly better the longtime Titans left tackle would be ready to play against the Bills next weekend.
• Should the Titans be cleared to resume their season against the Bills in Week 5, they will need to bring in another long snapper. The team will not use starting center Ben Jones as its specialty snapper, Paul Kuharsky of PaulKuharsky.com tweets. Beau Brinkley, Tennessee’s long snapper in every game since his 2012 rookie season, is currently on the Titans’ reserve/COVID-19 list.
• The Seahawks will have Shaquem Griffin in uniform for the second straight week, despite not carrying the linebacker over to its Week 1 roster out of training camp. A Seahawks regular in 2018-19, Griffin began the season on the team’s practice squad. But at least three other teams, including the Texans, expressed interest in the inspirational defender. Griffin, however, did not believe a move elsewhere would have presented a better situation, per Brady Henderson of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Shaquem Griffin’s twin brother, Shaquill, being a longtime Seahawk factored into this decision, Shaquem said (Twitter link).
• The Jaguars did some reshuffling in their scouting department recently. They promoted DeJuan Polk to director of pro personnel and named Chris Driggers as their pro scouting director, Adam Caplan of Sirius XM Radio tweets. Driggers has been with the Jags since the franchise’s inception, actually joining in 1994 — a year before the team began playing games — and has worked in a scouting capacity for the past 23 years. Polk was hired as the Jags’ assistant pro personnel director in 2016.