Team news

It’s a short week for the Giants and that means they issued an estimated practice report on Monday. The team didn’t practice a day after notching their first victory of the season, but they said that wide receiver Darius Slayton would have been limited by a foot injury.

Slayton had two catches for 41 yards and the team’s first passing touchdown since the opening week of the season. Slayton, who has all three of the team’s receiving touchdowns, could be seen favoring the foot at points during the game, the story said.

Assuming Melvin Gordon is healthy and able to return Sunday — which also requires an assumption the league does not yet institute any punishment for last week’s DUI arrest — the matchup with the Chiefs could provide the first real look at how those two players will work together.

Related players: Phillip Lindsay

The Broncos have had Lindsay and Gordon in the backfield together for just one half this season. The story quoted HC Vic Fangio as saying: “We’d go back to the plan we had for the opener,” Fangio said. “We’d use them both and manipulate the situations. There’d also be a chance for both of them to be out there at the same time.” Lindsay returned and rushed for over 100 yards last week against the Patriots with Gordon out of the lineup.

Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said after Sunday’s 38-7 loss to the Steelers that he pulled quarterback Baker Mayfield because he “just did not want to see him get hit one more time.”

Mayfield came into the game with a questionable tag because of sore ribs that were the result of a hit he took in the team’s Week 5 win over the Colts. He was sacked four times and hit several other times by members of the Pittsburgh defense over the course of the game and Stefanski said Monday that Mayfield is feeling the aftereffects the next day. The good news is the story said he will start in Week 7 and he's not nearly as sore as he was last week.

Doug Pederson said today that he thinks the Eagles can do more with Jalen Hurts lining up at quarterback and running zone-read plays.

“It’s been successful for us. I can see things continuing this way,” Pederson said, via John Clark of NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com.

Related players: Carson Wentz

Hurts provided a spark for the offense in the first half when the team trailed 17-0 and couldn't even produce a first down. The Eagles are battling injuries at their skill positions so factoring in Hurts makes some sense. So far this season Hurts has thrown one pass for 18 yards, caught one pass for three yards, and run seven times for 49 yards.

Titans’ TE Jonnu Smith is dealing with a “minor” ankle sprain.

Related players: Anthony Firkser

Smith is expected to be considered questionable for Sunday’s game against the Steelers, per source. If Smith can't go, Firkser could be an option, especially after a monster game (8-113-1) filling in for Smith this past week.

Eagles expect Miles Sanders to miss Thursday night's game with knee injury... Zach Ertz also expected out for 3-to-4 weeks with an ankle injury, according to sources.

Related players: Boston Scott, Dallas Goedert, Corey Clement

Goedert is expected to return to this week, a short week with a game on Thursday night. Owners were already asking about dropping Ertz on our Discuss Your Team forum, and it looks like that's a serious option at this point. At running back, Scott should suck up a large amount of Sanders' workload with Clement also becoming more of a factor.

Matt Rhule says he's not sure whether Christian McCaffrey will be back this week, next week or the week after. He's missed four games with a high ankle sprain.

Related player: Mike Davis

The Panthers have been saying they won't rush back McCaffrey, and it's been especially true because of the play of Davis at RB during much of the time McCaffrey missed. The injury was set to keep him out 4-6 weeks so the basic time frame Ruhl lays out kind of indicates that. He could miss the next two games and return after that but owners will want to make sure they keep updated on McCaffrey's status.

Frank Gore still got more carries, and the recently signed Ty Johnson got more yards (on three carries) as La'Mical Perine’s explosiveness remained bottled up Sunday during the Jets’ 24-0 loss to the Dolphins.

In another miserable game for the offense, Perine was limited to seven rushes for 27 yards and two catches for 9 yards. He also dropped a pass late in the second quarter when he appeared to have plenty of room to run if he had corralled it, a play that coach Adam Gase indicated factored into his playing time.

“[Getting Perine more carries] was the plan going in, and I was just kind of watching those guys, the body language,” Gase said. “I know after Perine dropped that one ball, I was just trying to make sure he was good confidence-wise. I didn’t want him to go in the wrong direction. Just trying to get him back in there and then trying to get Ty involved."

It sounds like the plan is to still get a good look at Perine the rest of the season, which is good news for owners. However, it looks like there will be some growing pains along the way which could limit his workload at times. Also, if you haven't noticed, the Jets offense isn't good, so starting Perine right now in fantasy lineups is going to be very risky.