It's Sunday morning, and we're getting reports on the various gameday decisions, and also updated on longer-term injuries. Including bigger name players like Patrick Mahomes and A.J. Green.
With Mahomes, his knee injury is being called a 3-5 week issue. If he missed 3 games, he'd play in Week 11, but Kansas City has a bye in Week 12. So it seems more likely he'll miss four games (8, 9, 10 and 11), have the bye week for an extra week of recovery, and then play in Week 13. Kansas City has Matt Moore, but another possibility is Chad Henne, who could be ready to return from an injury of his own before then. So Moore's play in Week 8 could determine whether it might be Moore or Henne in the lineup until Mahomes is back.
A.J. Green isn't expected to return from his ankle injury until "after the trade deadline" which is October 29th. So he'll miss Week 7 and 8; Cincinnati has a bye in Week 9. Cynics might guess that Green's return will come at a time when he has no choice but to play for Cincinnati.
Other news...
Alvin Kamara (ankle) is out today, but he hasn't yet been ruled out for Week 8. Whatever. Saints have a bye in Week 9 and Kamara reportedly has a high ankle sprain. I'm not counting on having him in Week 8, whether the team has done us the courtesy of ruling him out yet or not. I'm really not sure what the point of this report is, beyond somebody needing to fill a quota of news. Drew Brees hasn't been ruled out of next week, either, should I be making room for him in my lineup? He's not playing, and most likely Kamara isn't either.
David Johnson (ankle) will play today. Chase Edmonds' appeal is as a change of pace who maybe will get a little more work than usual, or a lot if Johnson has a setback. But Johnson looks safe to use as the clear lead back.
Mitchell Trubisky (shoulder) will play, should there be anyone who actually has to use Mitchell Trubisky.
Amari Cooper (ankle/quad) is expected to play tonight against the Eagles. Cooper was huge in a late-season game against Philadelphia last year. As I said yesterday, my own risk tolerance is not high enough to want to use Cooper. But these are decisions each team needs to make for themselves. My wariness of using Chris Godwin after a questionable tag a few weeks back caused me to miss out on a huge game. No easy answers for these questions.
If any other significant injury or inactive news crops up in the next couple of hours, I'll comment below. Good luck.
--Andy Richardson