8 NFL injuries that matter the most for Week 6 and what to know

We’re already in Week 6 of the 2025 NFL season, and players are dropping like flies. Some of them for the rest of the season, some of them are for a long time but not forever, some of them are for an unknown amount of time, and some guys are just playing through things even though it’d be smart to just sit a week out. 

We’re not going to focus on the super-long injuries. We know Joe Burrow is out. We know that it’s massive. And we know that Joe Flacco is going to give it a shot running the Cincinnati Bengals’ offense. We’re focusing on some relatively newer injuries, what they mean for the player, and what they mean for the other guys on the roster. 

The wastelands of the injury report

I’m mostly going to focus on offensive players here. The Lions' injury report is chock-full of dudes, but they’re almost all on defense. Is it important that Terrion Arnold is out and Brian Branch is questionable? Yes, immensely, and even more so in a game against the Chiefs. 

But that’s not as much fun as talking about what’s going on with the Panthers and how their big injury sets up a revenge game for a hot running back. You’ll see what I mean. 

Brock Purdy (maybe?)

Is Brock Purdy the guy for the 49ers? They paid him like they wanted him to be… But also, McCorkle Jones has been winning games for them, and he’s been doing it with less than nothing.

Purdy’s been dealing with a non-throwing shoulder thing and also a turf toe thing. Turf toe is one of those injuries where there are levels of severity to it. Jason Kelce explains it nicely:

Supposedly, Purdy has a Grade 1 Turf Toe thing that he got in Week 1. He played again in Week 4 and reaggravated it, which is a mega-tough situation. Does that mean he’s starting rehab from square one? Does that mean he’s just going to be out for just another week or two? Who knows? 

Adam Schefter reported that he’s going to be out again this week, which was kind of expect ed. It seems like the best move is to let Jones run the show until the wheels fall off, just to make sure Purdy gets back to 100%. 

Time will tell with this one. There’s still a lot of season left, and the 49ers are sitting at the top of the NFC West. They’ve got a little (a very, very little) bit of wiggle room. In Week 6, the George Kittle-less and Ricky Pearsall-less Niners get the Bucky Irving-less, Chris Godwin-less, and Mike Evans-less Buccaneers.

If these teams were close to full power, this game would be a whole lot of fun to watch… Eh, who am I kidding? Every Buccs game is electric. This will end up being a banger. 

Tua Tagovailoa

Any Tua Tagovailoa injury is an important injury. At any given moment, his brain is a jello cube in a blender, just ready for someone to set it to pulse/puree. 

Fortunately, for society, he’s not coming out of concussion protocol. Unfortunately, he’s dealing with something on his left hand. Normally, you see ‘left hand’ and you only worry about ball security… but you have to remember that Tua is a lefty. 

The dude already has an accuracy problem and the decision-making skills of a two-year-old, so having a knicked-up throwing hand is only going to exacerbate that whole thing.

Now he gets to play the Chargers in Week 6, and you've got to imagine that they’ll try to capitalize on that accuracy/decision-making/injury cocktail.

You may ask, ‘But Jake, couldn’t they bench him so he gets healthy?’ 
My response: ‘Zach Wilson.’

Most of the Ravens

Everyone on the Ravens’ defense is either a dead person rotting, a dead person getting Weekend at Bernie’sed, or they’re not playing good football. Sure, they’re getting Kyle Hamilton and Marlon Humphrey back, but their injury report still looks like a list of Game of Thrones characters and how they died. 

On top of that, Lamar Jackson is going to be out again, which means it’s going to be another game of Cooper Rush or maybe the return of Snoop Huntley. When Huntley took over for the Ravens in 2022, he ended up being a Pro-Bowler… So… fingers crossed?

Travon Walker

It took a handful of years, but it turns out that Travon Walker, who the Jaguars picked first overall in the 2022 draft, is a good football player. 

Walker had wrist surgery on Sept. 29, which is a bummer because he was having a pretty solid start to the season. He missed the Week 5 game on Monday Night against the Chiefs because of that surgery, but he was listed as limited on the Jags’ injury report on Thursday.

If he’s able to go against the Seahawks on Sunday, that’ll be huge not only for the team, for the miracles of modern medicine, but also for vibes. 

If you’re telling me that a guy had wrist surgery less than two weeks ago and now he’s going to play in a game, that probably means he’s going to have a club on his hand. Club hands are super sick; everyone loves a defensive end with a club hand…

It also helps when club-handed guys are awesome at football.

Kyler Murray 

Kyler Murray showed up on the injury report on Wednesday with some kind of foot thing going on, and it wasn’t some kind of thing that limited him in practice, but it’s one that made him a DNP.

He was limited on Friday, but he is questionable for the game. If he’s out on Sunday, then it’ll be Jacoby Brissett time. It’s 2025… absolutely no one wants it to be Jacoby Brissett time. 

Chuba Hubbard

Chuba Hubbard missed the Week 5 game against the Dolphins with a calf injury, and he’s been a DNP in practice this week because of it. This injury isn’t as much about him as it is about his backup, Rico Dowdle, who rushed for over 200 yards in Hubbard’s absence. 

Is Dowdle a guy you can rely on to smash 200-ish yards every game? Absolutely not… But the Panthers get to see the Cowboys in Week 6. That’s important because Dowdle spent the last five seasons in Dallas. 

If there’s a time for Dowdle to run it back and have another good game, it’d be pretty sick for him to have it as a revenge game… especially against the Cowboys. They got away relatively scot-free during the Micah Parsons revenge game, and it’d be fun if they got some kind of comeuppance at some point in the season. 

Terry McLaurin

Jayden Daniels had a hell of a bounce back in Week 5. He had been out the past couple of weeks with a sloppy knee, which left Marcus Mariota as the Commanders’ signal caller. Mariota won an easy game and lost a very winnable game. 

The thing about that Week 5 game against the Chargers was that rookie running back Bill Croskey-Merritt put the team on his back by rushing for 111 yards and 2 touchdowns. You have to imagine that the Commanders are going to want to throw the ball to keep up with a potentially high-powered Bears’ offense coming off a bye.

That passing game is a whole lot more efficient when Terry McLaurin is on the field… But he hasn’t been on the field for the past two weeks because of a quad. He hasn’t gone on the IR yet, so it seems like they’re ready for him to come back whenever he’s ready, but that remains to be seen. 

Since the Commanders are playing on Monday night, they still have a practice report that will come out on Saturday, but so far this week, McLaurin has been a DNP. 

It’s also worth noting that Noah Brown and Deebo Samuel were limited participants on Friday with the different things they have going on. I’d bet that they play, but they’re both 29 years old and in their seventh and eighth years in the NFL, respectively… bouncing back from what they have going on isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world anymore. 

Xavier Worthy

The Chiefs' offense has looked a lot better with Xavier Worthy on the field. Without him, Kansas City has a bunch of below-average-to-okay weapons on offense, but they all kind of do just one thing each. 

Worthy does a whole bunch. They use him on jet sweeps, routes to move the chains, and explosive plays; that versatility is huge.

On the way down to Jacksonville for that Week 5 game, he had some kind of ankle injury flare-up on the plane. As a guy who tore his ACL after the age of 30 and has it swell and throb every time I get on a plane: I get it: plane injuries are stupid and they stink.

Then, during the game against the Jags, Worthy came down a little bit funky and limped off the field. It sure looked like something jacked up that ankle.

Going into the Chiefs’ Week 6 game against Detroit, Worthy has been a full participant, and DNP, and he ended as a full participant with his shoulder and also the ankle thing. You never want to be doubled up with injuries. 

Will he play? Definitely. Will he be at 100%? Nope. Will it affect his production and how much he can help the offense? You have to imagine that it will.