Welcome back, unfortunately. It was just two short weeks ago that I was talking about some of the bad injuries going into the preseason . My honest thought was writing that was to jinx the injury bug. That was an objective failure.
We're just three weeks away from the start of the 2026 NFL season, and there are key players all around the NFL getting dinged up, hurt, and injured. Last week was particularly brutal, so let's look into everything that happened and how that affects the teams.
Keep in mind: Injuries stink, so let's try to keep a positive mind about it for as long as possible. I try to stay lighthearted... But yeesh, it's tough.
Las Vegas Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Knee? Ankle? Ankle-knee? Knee-ankle?
If you're living in Raiders-world, Sunday was a whirlwind. The first thing that came out was that Ashton Jeanty went down with an " apparent knee injury, " that he wasn't able to put weight on his leg, and that the team took a knee to pray for him. That's rough.
Then, a few hours later, it was reported that it was an ankle sprain ... Which is significantly less devastating, especially in a preseason where there's an epidemic of exploding knees.
I have two thoughts about that:
One is that ankle sprains linger, and this is probably definitely going to hamper him down the line. Even if they say this isn't a long-term thing, it'll still be a kick in the nards at some point in the next four or five months.
The other is less concrete, and it has to do with how devastating a leg injury is based on the location. From worst to not worst: Knee, Achilles area, bottom of foot, femur, inside of shin, ankle, outside of shin, and foot bones.
So with this proprietary yet admittedly imperfect injury-ranking system, an ankle is not as bad as a knee ... But an ankle that was confused for a knee? That's where it starts to get a little hairy. Vibes-wise, a knee-looking ankle injury is the worst kind of ankle and the best kind of knee.
New Orleans Saints wide receiver Jordyn Tyson | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Right Hammy
Jordyn Tyson is awesome on the field. He's able to be a big-time possession receiver, and it was a great idea for the Saints to draft him eighth overall to be the WR2 behind Chris Olave . Unfortunately, the "on the field" part carries a lot of weight here because the story of the dude's career was written by The Injury Bug.
In 2022, he had an ACL that took away his 2023 season. He had a late-season collarbone fracture in 2024. In 2025, it was an ankle sprain in the spring and a right hamstring sprain in the fall that took him out of a few games and kept him on the injury report for a big chunk of the season.
So for him, this offseason wasn't just about learning an NFL offense and getting comfortable as a pro, but also about staying healthy.
On Monday, Aug. 17, the NFL said that Jordyn Tyson re-injured that same right hammy, and that he was expected to miss the next two months. That means he'd be back around Week 6, when the Saints play at the Giants.
The little hiccup here is that in Week 7, the Saints go to Paris to play the Steelers and then have a bye in Week 8. If their offense is looking slick, it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world for them to keep Tyson on ice until Week 9. If you're a Saints fan, you're probably hoping that he's good to go well before that ... But this is the NFL: Expect the worst.
Houston Texans wide receiver Jayden Higgins | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Torn ACL
We all know Nico Collins rocks. We all know that David Montgomery and Woody Marks are going to have their work cut out for them running behind a rebuilt offensive line. We know that Tank Dell 's coming back from a brutal knee thing from 2024, and he might not look the same as he used to.
The only real exciting piece of the Texans offense was Jayden Higgins, their 6-foot-3, 215-pound, second-round wide receiver from the 2025 draft. He looked like he would end up being a solid piece of Houston's offense during the second half of his rookie season.
They were putting him in motion and lining him up everywhere, which is a pretty fun thing to see with a wide receiver as absolutely massive as Higgins is. There was some real juice around the kid.
Until it was reported that at practice on Tuesday, Aug. 18, Higgins tore his ACL and now he's out for the season. That's a massive bummer.
Luckily, they did make a move to fill the WR2 void: Houston traded safety/nickel/slot Jaylen Reed and a 2028 eighth-round pick to New England for wide receiver Kayshon Boutte.Reed was a 2025 sixth-round pick who was the one they trusted to play when Jalen Pitre was out with a concussion last year. You'd probably rather not have to let that guy go.
Boutte is a fun receiver, but he was probably going to be a WR3/4/5 in New England after they got Romeo Doubs and A.J. Brown this offseason. He'll be good for the Texans offense ... The problem is that he's 5-foot-11 and 200-ish pounds and definitely not a one-for-one replacement for Higgins.
It's a tough situation all the way around, but the Texans do get some goodwill points for actually making moves rather than lying to themselves and saying their next-man-up would be fine.
Los Angeles Chargers center Tyler Biadasz | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Torn ACL
Going into the offseason, the Chargers knew that they had to rebuild their offensive line again. They were going to be getting Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater back from their injuries, but they had to do a lot of work on the interior.
To do that, they got Jake Slaughter in the draft and Kayode Awosika , Cole Strange , and Tyler Biadasz in free agency. Biadasz is the most talented of those four guys by far, and with the three-year contract for $30 million, it looks like he was their plan at center for the near future. That's going to have to wait because on Tuesday, Aug. 18, he tore his ACL and now he's out for the season.
There is some good-ish news about this one, though. When they drafted Slaughter in the second round, they were drafting a guy who, in his four years at Florida, never played a snap at guard ... But they were going to have him compete for the starting left guard job. Based on practice reports, it sounds like he was very predictably losing that battle to Awosika.
Biadasz getting hurt is forcing the Chargers' hand and making them play the rookie at his natural position. Again, he's not Biadasz, and it's downright foolish to think that this is going to go smoothly ... But now their second-round pick is going to get starting experience in the NFL instead of sitting off to the side and trying to soak it in.
This means that they're going to get an answer on the guy; they're going to find out if he can play ball. Then, if they can slide him over to guard next year, they should be good to go ...
It also unfortunately means that we have to go another calendar year of people claiming that Herbert would win a playoff game if he had an offensive line ... So, that's a bummer.
Seattle Seahawks safety Bud Clark | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Broken Ankle
Not only did the Seahawks have the best defense in the NFL last year, but they also won the Super Bowl. When that's the combination that you're dealing with, you're going to get guys poached from the roster in free agency ... which is exactly what happened. They lost Riq Wollen, Boye Mafe , and most importantly, their safety, Coby Bryant .
They already had Ty Okada on their roster, and he's a perfectly fine safety, but he's not going to blow your pants off or anything like that. It was Bud Clark, the safety from TCU, that they drafted in the second round, who was the guy they were expecting a lot out of.
On Seattle's first defensive play of the game, Clark went down with a broken ankle. Now he's going to be out for "multiple months," according to his head coach, Mike MacDonald. That's rough.
You have to hope that it's just a clean break, and that realistically, the ligament/tendon damage is minimal. If that's the case and MacDonald's use of the word "multiple" is optimistically correct, then you're looking at late October ... But he's also a rookie who is trying to start on a well-run defense that he has minimal experience with. That means we're talking about maybe Week 12 (after their bye), and that's being very optimistic.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the only bad injury news they had...
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Jake Bobo | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Serious knee injury
On Friday, Aug. 21, the Seahawks lost Jake Bobo for the season with a "serious knee injury." That's the kind of wording that makes you sick to your stomach, because if it was one of the _CLs, they'd just say that. The fact that they don't give details is gruesomely haunting.
As far as what this means for the team: Bobo was Seattle's WR4 or 5, but more importantly, he was their dirty-work guy. If you think about those starters: Jaxson Smith-Njigba, Rasheed Shaheed , and Cooper Kupp ... none of those guys are really guys you want blocking. JSN's too valuable as a playmaker, Shaheed is a speed guy, and Kupp is a wily veteran and brutal technician.
For an offense that wants to run the ball as much as Seattle's does, Bobo is an unsung hero type of guy.
Hard Knocks is going to be a brutal thing to watch this week.
This article was originally published on www.fansided.com as Ashton Jeanty and the most devastating NFL preseason injuries before final roster cuts .
