Josh Palmer, Isiah Pacheco and the NFL injuries that matter most for Week 9

Last week was a funky injury week. The big news going into it was about the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson’s injury status. He ended up being a full participant in practice last Friday, but then he was inactive during their game. 

We’ve been had. We’ve been took. We’ve been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok… And you know what? John Harbaugh, you’re a liar, and I don’t appreciate it. We, as a society, aren’t going to let your buffoonery sour the sanctity of monitoring injury reports.

There’s nothing spookier than an ACL scare

These are the injuries that we’re looking at this weekend. It’s all about the key players here; who’s out, who’s in, and who you’re googling to avoid conversations at a Halloween block party that you don’t want to be at.

Injuries aren’t fun. In an attempt to lighten the mood, I’ll give you a fun game to play by yourself at a Halloween party at the end of each section.

Isiah Pacheco, Chiefs, Knee:

Isiah Pacheco took a pretty scary hit to the side of his knee on Monday night. He ended up limping off the field, but then the camera showed him getting checked for an ACL. 

During that test, the doctor (or whoever) pushes down on the thigh part of the leg and pulls on the calf part of the leg. If the ACL exists, there’s no give, as you would expect. If the ACL is all exploded and turned to mush, it feels like you can just yank that sucker right off the body (source: me, an ACL survivor).

In case you were wondering why he was so excited, it’s because he didn’t have a season-ending injury … so yeah, that’s a pretty human response. However, he sprained his MCL and now he’s week-to-week. 

He hasn’t practiced yet this week, so his availability for the Chiefs’ game against the Bills on Sunday afternoon is looking bleaker and bleaker by the day. 

Pacheco hasn’t exactly been lighting it up this season. He’s played in all eight games, and he only has 329 yards, which is the 28th most rushing yards (right around Nick Chubb and David Montgomery). 

That being said, teams have been able to run the ball on the Bills… like, really run the ball on them. They’ve allowed 150.3 rushing yards per game, which is the second most (behind the Bengals at 151.9). They’ve allowed 5.5 yards per rush, which is second most (behind the Giants at 5.7). They’ve allowed 33 rushes of more than 10 yards, which is fourth most. They’ve allowed 10 rushing touchdowns (T-2nd). And they’ve allowed the most rushing yards after contact per carry.

The Bills have a whole lot of trouble stopping the run, and it’s looking like the Chiefs are going to be without their RB1. That leaves 30-year-old Kareem Hunt and rookie Brashard Smith as the two guys on the ground. Both of those guys have been fine so far, but if you’re the Chiefs, you’d feel a whole lot more comfortable with your starting running back who punishes both the ground and the defense with every step he takes. 

Halloween Game: Find the person with the most elaborate costume at the party. Ask if you can try to guess who they are, and then just purposefully guess wrong answers (i.e., they dressed up as Bowser? Guess Yoshi, so they think you’re serious. After that, guess Augustus Gloop). Keep going until they walk away. Try to break your record with the next person.

Joe Flacco, Bengals, Shoulder:

Okay, so the Bengals are dead. They just gave a truly horrible Jets team their first win off a 16-point comeback. Going into the season, it felt like the Bengals were going to need to score 30 points in order to win games, but it turns out that they actually need to score 40 points. If your defense is that bad, you don’t get to be relevant.

This is all about the sanctity of football: Joe Flacco is dealing with a shoulder thing. He was a DNP on Wednesday and a limited participant on Thursday, so that’s definitely a step in the right direction. 

But if he has a setback or if he reinjures it during the game, we’ll have to see Jake Browning again. That’s the worst. That’s a crime against football. We simply cannot have that happen. 

They’re playing the Bears on Sunday. Luckily for the Bengals (and the world), Chicago has the fewest pressures in the NFL, and they’re also in the bottom five in sacks and QB hits. 

It’s just something to keep an eye on. Flacco is such an easy guy to root for, and it’s been looking like he’s having a lot of fun throwing to actual receivers. No one wants him to go out there and look like Carson Wentz did in Week 8. 

Halloween game: Steal candy and pin it on someone else. 

Pat Surtain, Broncos, Pec:

On Monday, news broke that the Broncos' stud cornerback and reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Pat Surtain, was dealing with a pec strain and that he’s going to be out for the next four to six weeks. That’s tough.

So far this season, he’s been targeted 34 times, allowed on 19 catches, for only 200 yards and zero touchdowns. He’s been playing at a stupid-high level.

This is less about what his injury means for this week, because they’re playing the Texans on Sunday. 

By no means does Houston have a good offense, but they are getting Nico Collins back. If C.J. Stroud has time to throw (which he probably won’t), the Broncos are going to get punished for not having the best player on their team on the field.

Now it’s going to be Kris Abrams-Draine’s job. When he was in during the Week 8 game, he allowed completions on all six of his targets for 78 yards. The caveats are that the Broncos were winning in a blowout, and most of those catches were underneath. So coverage calls might’ve been a little different than Vance Joseph would normally call…But still, he’s nowhere near Surtain. 

This is more about what this injury means over the course of the next four weeks. After the Texans, they play the Raiders, the Chiefs, and the Commanders. The Chiefs are the only team in that stretch that will kill you for not having a lockdown cornerback, let alone the most lockdown cornerback in the league. 

Halloween game: Secretly hijack the Bluetooth speaker/Spotify Jam and play Monster Mash. Follow that up with Cats in the Cradle to kill the vibe. Back to Monster Mash, then back to Cats in the Cradle. Toss in a DMX to get everyone off your trail. Then go back to Monster Mash and Cats in the Cradle. There’s no winner. 

Brock Purdy, 49ers, Turf Tootsie:

It’s been five weeks since Brock Purdy has played football. He hurt his toe in Week 1, came back too early to play in Week 4, hurt it again, and he’s been trying to get healthy since. 

He’s been limited in practice for the past few weeks, so it seems like maybe the time is coming for him to get back at it… But will it be this week? Maybe, but probably not. 

Aside from laying a stinker in the 49ers Week 8 game against a really good Texans defense, he’s been playing pretty well. Also, this Week 9 game against the Giants is on MetLife’s turf… Is that the field you want your $265 million quarterback to play on when he’s coming off an injury?

But… He’s your $265 million quarterback. The dude needs to play at some point because if Mac Jones keeps lighting it up, it’s going to make that front office look like a bunch of ding-dongs for paying Purdy a quarter of a billion dollars. It’s a tricky situation for Kyle Shanahan and the gang.

John Lynch, the 49ers’ general manager, was asked about who’s going to start this week. He answered, “A lot of this, at this point, is going to be on trusting Brock and where he's at… We'll see by the end of this week, we'll all make a good decision on who that guy's going to be.”

So they’re saying Brock’s still progressing through everything, and they’re just going to trust him when he says he’s good to go. I’d be curious to know whose idea it was for him to go back out there in Week 4. If it was Purdy’s idea, then maybe don’t trust him again. If it was the coaching staff’s idea, then good on them for learning.

Halloween game: Do the old, ‘mix Skittles in the M&M’s bowl’ trick. When someone says something, take a handful and eat it. But you have to act like they’re crazy and you don’t taste anything. 

Josh Palmer, Bills, Knee/Ankle:

Close your eyes and picture the Bills’ offense. Now open your eyes and look at the Bills’ offense. There are some big differences there. 

Josh Allen is supposed to be slinging the ball around the yard. He’s not, and the passing game looks disjointed. Is it because the players aren’t getting schemed open? Is it because Allen is a little dinged up? Is it because the receivers just aren’t that good, and they can’t get separation? It’s a combination of all of that. 

Yes, James Cook ran for 216 yards and two touchdowns against the Panthers in Week 8. When you have that kind of running game going, it’s a federal crime to switch the game plan to a pass-heavy one. But the passing game felt one-dimensional and just… off.

Part of that is due to Josh Palmer being hurt. He went down with a leg injury at the beginning of the second quarter in the Bills' Week 7 game against the Falcons. He’s their most reliable deep threat… Which isn’t great because he’s not great, but he’s what they have, so… Yeah.

After he went down in that game, they had to turn to Elijah Moore and Keon Coleman to be their downfield guys. The Bills went down two scores in that game and were never able to get back; they lost 24-14.

They play the Chiefs in Week 9. The Chiefs are definitely a much better offense than both the Panthers and the Falcons… And they might be a better offense than both of those teams combined. 

Defensively, the Bills aren’t going to be able to do much to stop Patrick Mahomes and the gang; they just don’t have the horses. So if Buffalo is going to stand a chance in this one, Josh is going to have to get back to his old gun-slinging ways and put up some big-boy points.

The best way for him to do that is to have a reliable downfield threat like Palmer, and not just YAC machines like Khalil Shakir or Dalton Kincaid. 

Luckily, Joshua Palmer went from being a DNP on Wednesday’s practice to a limited participant on Thursday. This is going to be one of the bigger injuries to watch as we get closer to Sunday.

Is it dumb to say that of all non-quarterbacks who are coming off an injury, Josh Palmer has the highest potential to help his team win an important game? Probably… But it sure does feel like it.

Halloween game: Dress up as a thief and then actually be a thief. Not really a game, as it is a misdemeanor/felony, but it’d still be fun if you’re into that kind of thing.

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