We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:
Denver Broncos
Minnesota Vikings
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Washington Football Team
Entering the season on one of the hottest seats among the current crop of head coaches, Vic Fangio has overseen an up-and-down slate. After starting 3-0, the Broncos lost four straight. They have since rebounded with back-to-back wins, despite significant injury issues. This midseason stretch certainly has helped Fangio’s case for a fourth season in Denver, and Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com notes that George Paton is fond of the John Elway-hired HC not necessarily looking to bring in his own leader. While the Broncos have endured several blowout losses during Fangio’s three-year tenure, it appears the defensive-minded leader has a decent chance of saving his job. Paton did say recently the team must play better offensively, potentially putting Pat Shurmur‘s job in question. The Broncos rank 18th offensively but averaged just 16 points per game during their four-game losing streak.
Here is more from Denver and the latest from around the AFC West:
Alvin Kamara will miss his first game this season. The Saints will hold their top skill-position player out against the Titans because of a knee sprain.
The fifth-year running back has not been especially injury-prone during his career, having missed just four games in four-plus seasons. But Kamara has missed at least one contest in each of the past three years.
New Orleans reacquiring Mark Ingram via trade looms larger now. Ingram has played around 30% of the Saints’ offensive snaps in his two games back with the team and has logged 15 carries in that span. The 11th-year veteran is also on track to break the team’s career rushing record, a mark Deuce McAllister holds with 6,096 yards, in Tennessee. Ingram is 20 yards away from eclipsing McAllister’s Saints standard.
Kamara, whose 21 touchdowns led the NFL last season, is 4-for-4 in Pro Bowls. Kamara’s 840 scrimmage yards through eight games had him on track for a career-best number here, though his absence this week will affect that pace.
This injury news will certainly sting a Saints team that is set to start Trevor Siemian for a second straight week and one that is missing Michael Thomas. The sixth-year wideout is out for the season. New Orleans was among the many teams that failed in a bid to sign Odell Beckham Jr. this week.
Jon Gruden has filed a lawsuit against Roger Goodell and NFL, David Ferrara of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. This comes weeks after leaked emails led to Gruden leaving his post as Raiders head coach.
“Through a malicious and orchestrated campaign, the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell sought to destroy the career and reputation of Jon Gruden, the former head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders,” the lawsuit states.
Signed to a 10-year, $100MM contract in 2018, Gruden resigned last month after multiple publications reported he used racist and misogynistic language in emails to former Washington team president Bruce Allen. This included (and was not limited to) crude remarks about Goodell, gay NFL players, female referees, and Washington cheerleaders.
“When their initial salvo did not result in Gruden’s firing or resignation, defendants ratcheted up the pressure by intimating that further documents would become public if Gruden was not fired,” the lawsuit stated. “They followed through with this threat by leaking another batch of documents to the New York Times for an October 11, 2021 article. On October 7, 2021, Jon Gruden was the head coach of the Raiders on a 10-year, $100-million contract. By October 11, 2021, he had been forced to resign.”
Gruden, 58, returned to coaching in 2018 after 10 years as an ESPN analyst. The NFL has not released any emails from the Washington Football Team investigation, and the league said no other violations were found on the level of Gruden’s comments. Gruden filed the suit in Nevada state court, Ferrara adds. The NFL called Gruden’s allegations “meritless,” Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
Coming off their best performance of the season, the Broncos are unlikely to have their play-caller for Week 10’s follow-up effort. Pat Shurmur is in the team’s COVID-19 protocols, according to Tom Pelissero of NFL.com (on Twitter).
Denver’s offensive coordinator for the past two seasons, Shurmur is not expected to be with the team when it faces the Eagles on Sunday. This opens a clear play-calling void for the Broncos, who have won two straight to reach 5-4. Shurmur tested positive for COVID-19, Vic Fangio said Friday.
Shurmur’s former lieutenant with the Giants, Mike Shula, looms as a clear prospect to call plays. Shula has been the Broncos’ quarterbacks coach for the past two seasons. While Shula served as Shurmur’s OC with the Giants from 2018-19, he spent the previous five seasons calling the Panthers’ plays as their OC. With that stint including Carolina’s 15-1 season, Shula certainly makes sense as an emergency play-caller here.
Shula will relay plays to Teddy Bridgewater, per Fangio (via 9News’ Mike Klis, on Twitter). It should then be expected the former OC will call plays Sunday, though Fangio said Friday he is not certain who will do so.
The Broncos also have former head coach Mike Munchak as their offensive line coach and ex-OC Curtis Modkins coaching running backs, giving the team other options for Sunday. The Broncos certainly will not be the first to go into a game without their play-caller due to COVID, with the Browns and Cardinals having also done so since the pandemic began.
Denver has run into a few coronavirus issues recently, one of which sidelining Noah Fant for last week’s game in Dallas. Fant and guard Netane Muti are off the team’s COVID list, though linebacker Justin Strnad, offensive lineman Austin Schlottmann and IR-stationed cornerback Michael Ojemudia were placed on the list this week. Drew Lock also tested positive in Dallas and flew back to Denver separately Sunday.
The Rams have signed Odell Beckham Jr. to a one-year deal, but this could wind up as a long-term arrangement. The Rams are hopeful that they’ll be able to sign Beckham to an extension, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (Twitter link), one that would keep him in Los Angeles for 2022 and beyond.
The Rams weren’t viewed as a leading suitor for Beckham, but, as RapSheet notes, they’ve actually had him on the radar for years. Sean McVay & Co. finally got their man this week, following Beckham’s messy divorce from the Browns. Before that, the Chiefs, Patriots, Saints, Seahawks, and Packers were viewed as his most likely destinations.
Beckham is now set to team with Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, and youngster Van Jefferson, furnishing the Rams with one of the league’s most dangerous WR groups. Thanks in part to their efforts, Matthew Stafford stands as the NFL’s leading passer with 2,771 yards through the air. Kupp, meanwhile, leads the league in all major WR categories — 74 grabs, 1,019 receiving yards, and ten touchdown catches.
Of course, it won’t be easy to keep all their stars for the long haul, especially since newcomer Von Miller also needs a fresh deal. But, through salary cap magic, they’ve managed to keep much of the band together in recent years.
For now, they’ve got OBJ on a modest one-year deal worth up to $4.25MM. He’s expected to debut on Monday night, when the Rams face the 49ers in San Francisco.
Four years ago, tight end Martellus Bennett dominated the pages of Pro Football Rumors. Bennett left the Patriots and joined the Packers in the spring of 2017, agreeing to a three-year, $21MM deal. After little in the way of production and lots of drama, the Packers dropped him in the middle of the season. The Patriots swooped in to claim him from the Packers, who had already paid out about $8MM to the tight end.
The Packers claimed that Bennett failed to disclose his lingering rotator cuff injury. Bennett, meanwhile, said that he noted the issue every week on his medical survey from the team. When the Packers put him on the waiver wire, Bennett hoped that he would go unclaimed, giving him time to recuperate. 
“It’s not about, ‘Could you play?’ It’s, ‘Should you play?’ It was one of those things,” Bennett said. “Right now, I’m just like, (expletive) it. At first, I told my agent to tell no teams to claim me because I was still trying to get the surgery. So when Bill (Belichick) called and said they claimed me, I was like, ‘No (expletive) way.’ ”
It was a big (expletive) surprise for Bennett, who circled back to the Pats just months after helping them defeat the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. The Patriots — with knowledge of his injury — passed him on his physical, allowing him to suit up against the Broncos on Nov. 12, 2017.
Unfortunately, the second stint wasn’t as impactful as the first. Bennett was placed on IR a couple weeks later with shoulder and hamstring injuries. Then, in the 2018 offseason, the Pats released him, and the tight end subsequently retired from football. Bennett left the game at the age of 31, though he reportedly lobbied the Pats to bring him back once they acquired his older brother, Michael Bennett. That didn’t happen, so Bennett walked away with his Super Bowl ring, 4,500+ career yards, and plenty of cash for retirement, since the Packers lost their arbitration battle for his bonus.
The Buccaneers will be without Rob Gronkowski for at least a little while. The veteran tight end will likely miss Sunday’s game against the Washington Football Team and could be sidelined for “about two or three weeks,” according to head coach Bruce Arians (Twitter link via SiriusXM). 
“We think in about two or three weeks, he’ll be back to normal. Gronk is gonna get better, and [we’re] just gonna make sure he’s good when he comes back,” Arians said. “We think that next week is a better time frame for him [coming back]. We kinda pushed it with the New Orleans thing. I want him ready to go the whole distance when we’re ready to go.”
Gronk has already missed five games this season with a previous rib injury. This time around, it’s a recurrence of his previous back issues, so the Bucs are playing it safe.
Before the rib injury — and related lung issues — the 32-year-old was enjoying a hot start to the season, notching four touchdowns through the first three weeks. To date, he has 16 catches for 184 yards and four scores across four games.
Despite the setbacks, Gronkowski remains one of the game’s most dangerous tight ends when he’s healthy. Last year, the veteran registered 45 catches for 623 yards and seven touchdowns in a complete 16-game slate. Later on, he showed up big in the Super Bowl, leading all receivers with six grabs for 67 yards and two TDs en route to the ‘chip.
For now, the Bucs expect to see Gronk return no later than Dec. 5, when they face the Falcons in Atlanta.
Today’s taxi squad moves:
Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
Matthew Stafford and the Rams offense has been cruising, and the team added another weapon today when they signed Odell Beckham Jr. to a one-year deal. Predictably, Stafford is excited to see OBJ join a depth chart that already features Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods.
“I’ve played with a bunch of good (receivers) in my career, and he’s up there,” Stafford said (via Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com). “He’s a talented guy. It’s one of those things where everybody on our team carves out their role. They do a great job of figuring out what that role is going to be and going out there and proving it — both on the practice field and in games — and then getting those opportunities. I know he’ll do the same. There’s a lot of time between now and that. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re on the same page, go out there and play ball.”
While Stafford and the Rams won the Beckham sweepstakes, a few teams were left empty handed. That included the Seahawks and Russell Wilson, who wished the wideout well but noted that his squad already has plenty of capable receivers on the depth chart.
“First of all, with Odell, he’s an unbelievable talent, a world class, generational type of talent,” Wilson said (via Mike Florio of PFT). “For our organization, we are always looking for ways to compete and find ways to win, but we have some great guys already. We have some of the best guys in the world, so to have the possibility of adding another amazing talent would be amazing. If not, we are still ready to go, hopefully all of the way, and that’s been our focus. He’s a tremendous talent.”
Some more notes following OBJ’s decision to join the Rams: