NFL Training Camp is a busy time of year. This is when the coaches implement their system, playbooks are drawn up and every position on every team is up for grabs. Injuries are as common as practice cones and tackling dummies. If you blink, you could just miss the preamble to a breakout season. Fortunately, I’ll be keeping up with all of it in order to ensure Fantasy Alarm Nation stays in the know all summer long.
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BIG IMPACT
Eagles starting RT Lane Johnson has been suspended for the first 10 games of the regular season for violating the NFL’s policy on performance enhancing drugs. Johnson is appealing the suspension claiming that his positive test was as a result of an NFL approved amino acid supplement. I am not scientist but this doesn’t seem like it will be a defendable case unless there is concrete proof of both the approval and the exact contents of the supplement.
What this does is hurt the Eagles offensive line quite considerably. You may recall that each of the past two seasons, Philly has been decimated with injuries along their front five. Losing Lane Johnson and with the eventual injury to Jason Peters (he’s hurt EVERY year) the Eagles will be in quite a bit of trouble. I love Ryan Mathews this year but it is things like this that can derail what otherwise would have been a great fantasy season.
Continue to monitor my Fantasy Football Rankings for how this loss and others impact the value of the players you are targeting in fantasy drafts this season.
Patriots Notebook
Several things have caught my attention at Patriots camp the past few days.
As you may have heard by now Patriots WR Julian Edelman was activated from the PUP list on Monday and then went down with a lower left leg injury this morning during the teams scheduled scrimmage with the New Orleans Saints. The injury was initially believed to be to his surgically repaired foot and Edelman’s reaction upon leaving the field certainly did nothing to disprove that. But it appears as though Edelman has escaped a major setback with that foot and is instead just dealing with a lower ankle injury.
The Patriots are of course very secretive about their injuries so my guess is that we will not hear much if anything about Edelman’s exact injury or his status moving forward until the NFL forces them to reveal. Thus, it could be weeks before we know what Edelman’s true status is. I suspect that he won’t be back at practice in anything other than a minimal capacity for at least a couple of weeks.
In other Patriots news, former Panthers sixth round pick Tyler Gaffney has been getting work with the first team offense this week after impressing coaches with his pass catching and blocking this summer. Gaffney is a guy who left football while at Stanford University in order to pursue a career in baseball only to return to football the next year and have an outstanding final season. He was having a real good camp with Carolina when he suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee which ended his season and time with the Panthers. The team waived him and the Patriots stepped up and claimed him despite the injury right away and have kept him close ever since. This tells me that the Patriots really do like the kid and the fact that he’s leaping over others tells me that he could indeed be this season’s version of Dion Lewis. Now we are a long way from that but it is something to keep in mind as we monitor the health and performance of this RB corps.
LOOK WHO’S HERE
Former Vikings and Patriots (we’ll pretend the Raiders and Titans never happened) WR Randy Moss was a guest at Texans camp today. Moss spoke with and did drills with the wide receivers before speaking to the entire team at head coach Bill O’Brien’s suggestions. O’Brien and Moss had some great seasons together on the Patriots but Moss is hardly the kind of player I would want my players emulating. Sure, he was a stud on the field but he also completely quite on his teammates at every single stop (including New England) and was a habitual rule violator as well. But I suppose that if you concentrate on simply what he did on the field it is a treat for some of these young WR’s to meet one of the player’s they likely grew up admiring.
IT’S ALL GOOD
There has been a lot of talk about the Baltimore Ravens RB situation this summer. As you know, I have been a big fan of rookie RB Kenneth Dixon since the Ravens took him with their fourth round pick this past May. Well, Dixon was slow to go at the start of camp instead giving way to third year RB Terrance West who was running with the first team offense just a week ago.
This weekend, it was Dixon who shined in the team’s inter-squad scrimmage by running over and through just about everybody in his path. He had two runs over 25 yards and demonstrated an ability to change direction on a dime with his patented jump cut. There is a lot of Matt Forte to Dixon’s game and we all remember the kind of numbers that Forte put up while in Marc Trestman’s offense, don’t we?
With West and Dixon rolling along it is almost easy to forget about starting RB Justin Forsett. Forsett has sat out some practices this summer but only because the coaching staff wants to keep him fresh. They know that as a smaller RB, each hit that Forsett takes on could be his last so they are trying to keep him in tact until the season starts. Head coach John Harbaugh came out this morning though and proclaimed that Forsett has “quietly had a great camp” and that he “looks like the same running back as two years ago.”
I think the takeaway here is that Justin Forsett will indeed be the RB1 for the Ravens to begin the season. But because of the improvements along the offensive line and the scheme that they run, really anybody to carries the football in Baltimore this season will be a productive fantasy player. As of now, Forsett is the guy to own with Dixon and West competing to be the handcuff. Buck Allen and Lorenzo Taliaferro are vying for one spot to be the short yardage runner and likely special teams ace. This is the deepest backfield in the NFL this season.
SITTING OUT
Matt Forte, RB, Jets – Hamstring
Julian Edelman, WR, Patriots – Ankle
Kenyan Drake, RB, Dolphins – Hamstring
Wendell Smallwood, RB, Eagles – Quad
C.J. Prosise, RB, Seahawks – Hamstring
Kendall Wright, WR, Titans – Hamstring