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Week 3
Washington Named Its Backup First
Marcus Mariota is starting for the Commanders on Sunday. Dan Quinn confirmed it Monday, one day after Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow in a loss to Dallas. Daniels had imaging done and is off consulting multiple specialists, with no timetable attached to any of it.
So Washington opens at home, 0-2, against the team that won the Super Bowl in February, and the quarterback it drafted second overall is getting second opinions instead of snaps. A home opener is supposed to be the easy one to sell.
Seattle may answer with a backup of its own. Sam Darnold is due on the practice field today in some capacity, Drew Lock has won both games since Darnold went down, and Mike Macdonald has already said that if Darnold can play, he plays. Vegas isn’t waiting for the practice report: the Seahawks opened as 5.5-point road favorites and are now sitting on seven.
7
Seattle’s spread at Washington, up from 5.5 when the week opened.
Here is the thing about a backup quarterback game, and I say this as someone who watched Seattle win 31-7 with theirs. It is not a coin flip. It is a test of whose supporting cast can carry a passer who wasn’t planning on this. Seattle’s answer was 162 rushing yards and a defense that has allowed two touchdowns all year. Washington is 0-2 and finding out this week.
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Roster
Charbonnet’s Door Is Unlocked as of This Week
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What has to happen is a date, and Macdonald doesn’t have one yet. “We’re getting down to him possibly finding a date where he can start practicing again,” he said Friday. “That’s coming soon. When that exact date is, we haven’t finalized that yet.” Eight months removed from ACL surgery, that is the correct amount of caution and an infuriating sentence to read.
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Eight months removed from ACL surgery, that is the correct amount of caution and an infuriating sentence to read.
It matters more than it did two weeks ago. Jadarian Price left Arizona with a shoulder problem, Emanuel Wilson took 21 carries and looked like he’d been doing it all along, and the depth chart behind them is a practice-squad phone list. Charbonnet jogging around at the VMAC in a red non-contact jersey would qualify as a good Wednesday.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Somebody handed Macdonald a stat on Monday: through two games, no opponent has produced a single 20-yard play against this defense. Not one. Two full games of football and nobody has gotten a chunk. That’s not bend-don’t-break, that’s a locked door with a chair under the handle. Yahoo Sports
Anthony Bradford is still a question. The right guard was limited Wednesday and Thursday last week, didn’t practice Friday, got downgraded to out on Saturday with knee and hip injuries, and Macdonald was noncommittal about this week. Christian Haynes split the job two series at a time in Arizona and the run game put up 162 yards, so the emergency is holding up fine. Seattle Sports
Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman named Jaxon Smith-Njigba their Employee of the Week after his three-touchdown afternoon. Two Patriots legends giving a plaque to the guy who put 122 on New England in the opener. Take the win, fellas. It’s all you’re getting. FOX Sports
Resale prices for Sunday’s game in Washington are sliding as the quarterback news gets worse, with the over/under falling right alongside them. The defending champions are in town for the home opener and the market’s review is a shrug. Somebody buy those seats, they’re practically free. Covers
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Davante Adams went on Pat McAfee and floated a hypothetical: if Matthew Stafford had spent his entire career with Sean McVay, “we’d be talking about him as maybe the greatest quarterback of all time.” Bold résumé work for a 1-1 team in September. Also a brutal drive-by on Detroit, who are not even on the schedule. Beat somebody in your own division first and then we can do legacy hour.
NINERS
San Francisco is 2-0 and Brock Purdy leads the league in completion percentage at 80.8. Meanwhile Christian McCaffrey, the whole reason that offense exists, has 91 rushing yards on the season. Ninety-one. Kyle Shanahan spent a decade building the most sophisticated running scheme in football and is currently winning games by throwing it sideways.
CARDINALS
Marvin Harrison Jr. has played 77 percent of Arizona’s offensive snaps and been thrown at four times total. One catch, 33 yards, two games. Asked about the single target against Seattle, Mike LaFleur explained that “we didn’t throw the ball for crap anyway.” True! Also not the ringing endorsement the fourth overall pick was hoping for on a Monday.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This undrafted defensive lineman out of Boston College signed with Seattle in 1982, spent all 15 of his NFL seasons here, and played a franchise-record 218 games. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Joe Nash. He made first-team All-Pro and the Pro Bowl in 1984, the year Seattle won 12 games for the first time in team history.
Got a Question? Fire Away.
The mailbag is open and lightly supervised. Roster math, cap gripes, arguments you lost at work, questions about which backup quarterback you should emotionally invest in. Send them over and I’ll answer one in a future issue.
Nothing to fix this week. Just a flight to catch. — The Rooster