Saturday’s lone taxi squad move:
Kansas City Chiefs
Pole was among the Chiefs’ final roster cuts this summer, leading to a waiver claim from the Jets. After being let go by New York earlier this week, though, he was free to sign with any team. Pole is now back with Kansas City on the team’s practice squad.
Here are Saturday’s minor moves and standard gameday practice squad elevations for tomorrow’s slate of games:
Baltimore Ravens
Carolina Panthers
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Denver Broncos
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
Philadelphia Eagles
San Francisco 49ers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Recently named QB2 Shedeur Sanders found his way to the injury report today with a back injury. By elevating Zappe, Cleveland is ensuring Sanders won’t play tomorrow, since in order to have three quarterbacks dressed for gameday, all three passers must be on the 53-man roster. Zappe will back up Dillon Gabriel, and Sanders will likely be in sweats. Similarly in Carolina, with Bryce Young set to sit this week, Hooker has been called up to back up Andy Dalton.
Both Buccaneers quarterbacks, Baker Mayfield and Teddy Bridgewater, were on the injury report this week, though neither received a “questionable” injury designation as result of their ailments. Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reported that both passers are expected to be available, but with Bazelak taking up a spot on the active roster, it seems likely that only one other quarterback will be suited up alongside the practice squad callup. Because Bazelak’s not on the 53-man roster, only two passers can be active. Tampa Bay can still designate Bazelak as the inactive third quarterback, but doing so would seemingly be making this elevation moot.
There is no corresponding move necessary for Philadelphia to add Cooper. The team received a two-game roster exemption after signing veteran defensive end Brandon Graham, so they had an open roster spot.
For Basham in Carolina and Jennings in New England, this will be their third and final standard gameday practice squad elevations. If either of their respective teams want them to play in another game this season, they will need to first be signed to the 53-man roster.
Linebacker Divine Deablo has been superb in his first season with the Falcons, but the team will go without him for the foreseeable future. The Falcons placed Deablo on IR with a broken forearm on Saturday. He’ll miss at least four games and won’t be eligible to return until Week 12.
[RELATED: Kirk Cousins To Start Week 8]
A former third-round pick and a Raider for the first four seasons of his career, Deablo left Las Vegas to sign a two-year, $14MM pact with Atlanta last March. The deal worked out well for the Falcons until Deablo suffered his injury in a loss to the 49ers last Sunday.
Over six games this year (all starts), Deablo has tallied 24 tackles, four passes defensed, a fumble recovery, and a half-sack. Opposing quarterbacks have mustered a weak 79.6 passer rating when they’ve thrown Deablo’s way. Not surprisingly, Pro Football Focus ranks Deablo’s overall performance seventh among 78 qualifying linebackers.
Thanks in part to Deablo, Atlanta’s defense ranks second in the NFL in yards per game allowed and eighth in points surrendered this year. Second-year linebacker JD Bertrand will be among those tasked with filling in for Deablo. Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said this week he’ll take a “committee” approach in replacing the 6-foot-3, 223-pound Deablo, who combines a linebacker’s size with the athleticism of a defensive back (via Scott Kennedy of SI.com).
While Deablo is now on injured reserve, the Falcons brought back safety Jordan Fuller from IR on Saturday. The former Ram and Panther signed a one-year deal with the Falcons last March, joining Deablo as an offseason free agent pickup. He played 16 of his 17 snaps on special teams in a Week 1 loss to the Buccaneers before succumbing to a knee injury. With 56 career starts, Fuller will give the Falcons experienced depth behind the starting safety tandem of Jessie Bates and Xavier Watts.
Linebacker/defensive back Ronnie Harrison will join Fuller as part of Atlanta’s ‘D’ on Sunday against Miami. The Falcons signed Harrison from their practice squad to their 53-man roster on Saturday. They also elevated quarterback Easton Stick and wide receiver Dylan Drummond from their P-squad.
With backup quarterback Kirk Cousins considered ” highly likely” to start in place of usual starter Michael Penix Jr., who’s dealing with a knee injury, Stick’s elevation likely indicates that Penix will be inactive on Sunday. Since Stick isn’t on the 53-man roster, only two quarterbacks will be active for tomorrow’s game. If Penix is able to start, Stick will likely be designated the inactive third quarterback, but with things trending towards Cousins starting behind center to start tomorrow’s game, Penix could be the inactive passer.
After a four-week absence, Giants kicker Graham Gano will return Sunday against the Eagles. The Giants are activating Gano from IR, Jordan Raanan of ESPN reports. He’ll be their only active kicker in Philadelphia, per Raanan.
The 38-year-old Gano connected on all six field-goal tries and four straight extra points to begin the season, but he suffered a groin injury in pregame warmups in Week 3. Injuries have been an all-too-frequent occurrence for Gano since he signed a three-year, $16.5MM contract extension in 2023. He has now missed 20 games dating back to then.
Gano, who returned to practice earlier this week, will reclaim his job from fill-in Jude McAtamney. The Northern Ireland native converted both of his field-goal attempts during Gano’s four-game stint on IR. However, he missed three of his 12 extra-point tries, including two in a deflating 33-32 loss to the Broncos last Sunday. The Giants then cut McAtamney on Tuesday before re-signing him to their practice squad. He and veteran Younghoe Koo are in the fold as fallback options behind Gano.
Along with activating Gano on Saturday, the Giants elevated wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey and safety Raheem Layne from their practice squad. It’ll be the third standard gameday elevation for both players, which is the limit. The Giants will need to sign either to their 53-man roster if they want to activate one or both of them again.
The Giants also waived linebacker Swayze Bozeman, who has appeared in four of their games this season. The 26-year-old has played 92 snaps (75 on special teams, 17 on defense) and made three tackles.
Just three days after opening his 21-day practice window, the Jets have opted to activate linebacker Quincy Williams off of injured reserve. To make room on the 53-man roster, two players were placed on IR. Wide receiver Josh Reynolds and linebacker Cam Jones will miss at least the next four games after both suffered recent hip injuries. 
Williams should easily fit back into the starting lineup on defense next to Jamien Sherwood. Just a year and a half removed from a first-team All-Pro season, Williams should immediately bring improvement to the Jets’ defensive front seven. Rookie fifth-round pick Kiko Mauigoa has been starting in Williams’ place and will likely revert to the third linebacker role, in which he’ll work on the first-team defense for formations that don’t require extra defensive backs.
Another interesting aspect of this transaction concerns the narrative of the trade deadline arriving in 10 days. Despite spending the last four weeks on IR, Williams has reportedly been monitored by teams looking for linebacker help on the trade market. Despite his recent All-Pro acclaim, Williams saw Sherwood, a former special teamer who developed into a starting role, earn a shiny, new deal as Williams made his way into a contract year. Though the shoulder injury may have dinged his value a bit, if a team comes in with the right price, the winless Jets are certainly in position to sell.
Reynolds has been running as WR2 in the Jets bottom-ranked pass attack this year. In five games, he’s caught 11 passes for 101 yards as the fourth most-targeted pass catcher on the offense, behind rookie tight end Mason Taylor and running back Breece Hall. With Reynolds out, fourth-round rookie Arian Smith and veterans Allen Lazard and Tyler Johnson will need to step up behind WR1 Garrett Wilson.
With Jones joining Reynolds on IR, the Jets had an open spot on the 53-man roster. The team opted to fill that spot by signing practice squad receiver Brandon Smith to the active roster. Smith will add depth to the receiving corps during Reynolds’ extended absence. Additionally, New York announced that it would call up defensive tackle Payton Page as a standard gameday practice squad elevation.
The Jets’ other practice squad elevation will be utilized on undrafted rookie quarterback Brady Cook. The Mizzou product is being called up for the second time this year to serve as the team’s backup quarterback on Sunday. Though it was initially thought that veteran Tyrod Taylor would be replacing Justin Fields as QB1, a knee injury will hold Taylor out, forcing Fields back into the first-team lineup and necessitating the elevation of Cook to back him up.
Bills first-round rookie Maxwell Hairston is finally set for his NFL debut. The team announced that it has activated the cornerback from injured reserve.
The 30th overall pick from Kentucky, Hairston entered the summer competing with Tre’Davious White for the Bills’ No. 2 corner job opposite Christian Benford. Hairston suffered an LCL injury early in training camp, though, leading to an IR placement for him and a starting role for White.
At 30 years old and having dealt with two major injuries in recent seasons (a torn ACL and an Achilles tear), White has struggled to regain his past form in 2025. Benford has also failed to impress after landing a four-year, $69MM extension last offseason.
To make matters worse for the Bills, they’ve been thin at boundary corner behind Benford and White. Another one of their rookies, sixth-rounder Dorian Strong, went on IR with a neck injury after Week 4. He may not return this season. With Strong and Hairston out, the Bills have been down to Ja’Marcus Ingram – a healthy inactive multiple times in 2025 – as their third outside corner in recent weeks.
The addition of Hairston will provide some much-needed playmaking ability and speed to the Bills’ secondary. The team’s corners have gone without an interception during a 4-2 start in which the defense has picked off just two passes. Hairston racked up five INTs in 2023, though he totaled just one over seven games in an injury-limited year last season. The 5-foot-11, 183-pounder then ran the fastest 40-yard dash time at the combine (4.28), which no doubt contributed to the Bills’ decision to draft him.
After missing the Bills’ first six games, Hairston returned to practice this past Monday. The Bills would have had 21 days to activate him, but head coach Sean McDermott will bring him into the fold much quicker than that. Hairston will debut Sunday against the Panthers as the Bills try to snap a two-game losing streak.
Safety Jordan Poyer and defensive tackle Jordan Phillips will join Hairston on Buffalo’s active roster in Week 8. The team, which is banged up at both positions, elevated the pair of Jordans from the practice squad on Saturday.
It’s been almost 300 days since Packers wide receiver Christian Watson tore his ACL, ending his 2024 season, but a return could be on the horizon. Watson will have a chance to make his 2025 debut tomorrow as Green Bay has activated him off the reserve/physically unable to perform list. He makes his way off the injury list with just two days to spare in his 21-day practice window. 
With the injury occurring so late in the season, there were immediate expectations that Green Bay would be without one of their top receivers to start the 2025 campaign. What’s worse, this season was supposed to be a contract year for Watson, which would’ve given him a chance to earn a big, new contract. The Packers made sure that Watson would avoid having to prove himself in half a season by giving him a one-year, $11MM extension.
The short-term delay of free agency acts as a prove-it deal. After seeing the 26-year-old miss time with hamstring issues throughout his first two years, teams will want to see him have a fully healthy season before signing him to a big contract. The extension will allow Watson to ease back into the game over the remainder of this season and hit the ground running in 2026, his new contract year. The team also built three effective voidable years into the deal which will allow them to circumvent the 12-month renegotiation waiting period usually required to sign him to another potential extension after the season.
As the season drew near, it became clear that Watson would start the year on the reserve/PUP list, and eventually, he did. He returns to a Packers team that has gotten off to a hot 4-1-1 start and currently sits atop the NFC North. The offense and passing attack haven’t appeared to be quite as successful as last year’s offensive unit, but perhaps Watson’s return can contribute to some improvements on that front.
Also lacking Jayden Reed since Week 2, quarterback Jordan Love has continued to spread the ball evenly between his targets with tight end Tucker Kraft and receivers Romeo Doubs and first-round rookie Matthew Golden proving to be the main benefactors. While Reed remains on injured reserve for now, the addition of Watson back into the offense may mean a small change in role for Golden or Dontayvion Wicks.
We’ll see just how much of a leash the Packers give Watson, if they do in fact let him play in his first game of the season. They’ve been cautious in his return from injury thus far, so it’d be a surprise if he came out tomorrow with zero restrictions. Either way, adding Watson back into the mix should only help the Packers in what looks like it might be the league’s most contentious division race.
To make room for Watson on the 53-man roster, the Packers waived tight end Ben Sims. They also announced they would elevate defensive end Arron Mosby for the second time this year as a standard gameday practice squad elevation.
The Bears have placed cornerback Kyler Gordon and offensive tackle Braxton Jones on injured reserve, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports. Both players will miss at least four games.
This represents another major setback for Gordon, a slot standout who missed the first four games of the season with a hamstring injury. Gordon returned to play the Bears’ past two games, a pair of victories in which he logged 81 defensive snaps and six tackles. He’s now dealing with calf and groin issues that will keep him out of the Bears’ lineup until at least Nov. 23.
Gordon’s injury troubles aren’t what he or the Bears had in mind when they shook hands on a three-year, $40MM contract extension in April. Worsening matters for Chicago, the team also has another key corner, Jaylon Johnson, on IR with a groin injury. Johnson has played just one game this year. If he comes back, it won’t be until later in the campaign.
Along with Gordon and Johnson, the Bears will also go without corner Tyrique Stevenson (shoulder) in Week 8 against the Ravens. The good news for Chicago, which has won four in a row since an 0-2 start, is that it won’t face injured starting quarterback Lamar Jackson on Sunday. Tyler Huntley will start in Jackson’s place.
After making 40 straight starts in his first three years in the NFL, Jones opened 2025 as the Bears’ top option at left tackle. However, the team benched Jones in favor of Theo Benedet after Week 4, relegating him to an unfamiliar backup role.
While teams had been eyeing Jones as a potential trade chip leading up to the Nov. 4 deadline, his knee injury may put the kibosh on that. The pending free agent should not require a long-term IR stint, though, Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune reports. Second-round rookie Ozzy Trapilo will serve as the Bears’ primary backup at tackle in Jones’ absence.
In addition to placing Gordon and Jones on IR, the Bears made a few other moves Saturday, per Scott Bair of Marquee Sports. The Bears signed defensive lineman Jonathan Ford from their practice squad to the 53-man roster, and they elevated tight end Stephen Carlson and defensive back Dallis Flowers.
OCTOBER 25: Jackson ran the scout team during Friday’s practice, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, another sign that he may not play on Sunday. However, the Ravens have leaned into the uncertainty around Jackson’s status this week as a way of interfering with the Bears’ preparation. At 1-5, Baltimore desperately needs a win, so they will take any competitive advantage they can get.
OCTOBER 24: After limping heavily out of a four-game losing streak, the Ravens got very healthy during their bye week. While four expected contributors on the defensive front remain out on injured reserve, the only player in Baltimore with an injury designation heading into the weekend is quarterback Lamar Jackson, and that designation of “questionable” could not be any more appropriate. 
After getting a few injured players back two weeks ago, it was expected that the two they didn’t — Jackson and linebacker Roquan Smith — would be able to return after the bye. On Wednesday, Jackson returned to practice for the first time since injuring his hamstring in late-September, per Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic. ESPN’s Jamison Hensley added that Jackson was a limited participant that day, taking reps behind usual backup Cooper Rush and practice squad quarterback Tyler Huntley.
After another limited practice yesterday, head coach John Harbaugh told the media that Jackson was able to be a full participant today. Despite the full practice also appearing on the team’s injury report, the “questionable” status remained. There was one move the team made today, though, that may hint towards the team’s expectations.
First reported by Zrebiec, the Ravens promoted Huntley from the practice squad to the 53-man roster. We saw something similar happen in San Francisco as the 49ers dealt with an injury to starter Brock Purdy. They had been calling up quarterback Adrian Martinez as a standard gameday practice squad elevation each week to back up the usual backup quarterback Mac Jones.
There was speculation that Purdy may be healthy enough to serve as the team’s third emergency quarterback, but they had yet to decide. A new rule was recently implemented making it so that a team can have three quarterbacks suit up for a football game instead of the previously permitted two. The rule was created after former-backup 49ers quarterback Josh Johnson suffered a concussion after coming in to replace an injured Purdy in the 2022 NFC Championship Game, and Purdy was forced to return to the game.
The new rule made it so that teams could have a third, emergency quarterback suited up to avoid such situations, but it required that the third QB be on the team’s 53-man roster. So, earlier this year, everybody waited to see if Martinez would be simply elevated or signed to the active roster. San Francisco ended up just elevating him that week, ensuring that Purdy would be inactive for that game.
So Huntley’s promotion tells us something about the team’s expectations. If Baltimore knew Jackson wasn’t going to be able to play, they could’ve just used Huntley’s third elevation without sacrificing a spot on the 53-man roster. Bringing him onto the active roster, though, indicates that all three quarterbacks will be able to suit up on Sunday.
There’s still a chance Jackson is made inactive for the game or gets ruled out eventually, but the Ravens have set it up for Jackson to start, with Huntley and Rush being available as backups. In fact, Harbaugh also told the media that Huntley has surpassed Rush as QB2, making Rush’s two-year, $6.2MM contract appear quite large for a third-string passer.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport went on air today saying that it seems like the Ravens are preparing for Jackson to start this weekend, but they want to make it through the next two days before they make any official announcements about the two-time MVP being back. If it’s not Jackson this Sunday, it will be Huntley.
Here are today’s minor moves as we head into the eighth weekend of the regular season:
New Orleans Saints
New York Jets
Seattle Seahawks
Tennessee Titans
Mitchell-Paden, an undrafted free agent back in 2022, saw the first regular season snaps of his NFL career earlier this year as the Ravens dealt with the absence of a then-injured Isaiah Likely. Mitchell-Paden was waived yesterday in order to make room for practice squad quarterback Tyler Huntley, and New Orleans took the initiative to bring him on, cutting Jones, who had been promoted from the practice squad on Tuesday, to make room on the 53-man roster.
King was waived so that Minnesota could make room for running back Aaron Jones to come off of injured reserve, and Kinsey is getting promoted from the practice squad to the 53-man roster in Tennessee after appearing as an elevation is last week’s game. Saubert’s brief stint on the free agent market appears to have had some procedural purpose. Seattle released the veteran on Wednesday, and no other roster spot juggling was done before the team signed him back today.