This all just sucks, and it’s not fun to talk about. We know injuries are a part of football, and 99% of the people who have any sort of career in the NFL end up getting injured. You kind of just have to hope those injuries are A. not severe, and B. happen during meaningful football.
But here we are in training camp, and once again, guys are dropping like flies. So let’s look at some of the big injuries and some of the not-as-big injuries that will still impact the season.
By the way, we’re not looking at injuries from before training camp. That means Patrick Mahomes, Daniel Jones, and Micah Parsons aren’t getting included. We’re talking about guys that have gotten injured in the past couple of weeks … and the first one happened before a team could even get excited about the season.
Nic Scourton, EDGE, Carolina Panthers
- ACL
Training camps started on a really bad foot. On the very first day of any team’s camp, Nic Scourton, the Panthers’ 2025 second-round edge rusher, tore his ACL, and now he’s out for the season.
This is a team that really invested in their pass-rushing group this offseason by signing Jaelan Phillips. Scourton was set up to be their other guy. He didn’t light the world on fire last season, but he did have five sacks, and he was solid against the run … But he was set up for a second-year bump. That’s going to have to wait now.
Taylor Morton, Right Tackle, Carolina Panthers
- Blood Clots (lung)
The Panthers also got some bad news on their offensive line, which is a huge problem. They were already going into the season without Ikem Ekwonu at left tackle because he tore his patellar tendon in January. That means that the only returning tackle this year was going to be Taylor Moton, who is really good.
Well, at the end of July, the Panthers announced that Moton had blood clots in his lung and that he was going to miss a bunch of time. That sucks big time, but you can’t mess with blood clots and that kind of life-threatening stuff.
So now, the Panthers are going to have to roll with Rasheed Walker (who they got in free agency) and their first-round rookie, Monroe Freeling.
The Panthers were setting themselves up to have a very solid offensive line, which would’ve been great going into a season where they need to figure out exactly what Bryce Young can be as a quarterback.
This is a bad spot to be in, especially for mid-August.
Cade Mays, Center, Detroit Lions
- Wrist bones
The one thing that has defined Dan Campbell’s Lions has been a straight-up dominant offensive line. After Taylor Decker retired and they released Graham Glasgow, they were kind of forced to switch things up. Penei Sewell is moving to left tackle, the rookie Blake Miller is going to take over at right tackle, and they are bailing water at center.
At center, they got Cade Mays (free agency) and Juice Scruggs (trade with the Texans). Based on what we’ve seen from Scruggs in the past, it seemed like they were kind of counting on Mays to win the starting job.
Well, he ended up breaking a bone in his wrist, and now he’s going to be out until October. The Lions have a Week 6 bye, so I imagine that he’d come back in Week 7 (Oct. 25th) for their first game against the Packers.
Jalon Walker, EDGE, Atlanta Falcons
- ACL
With the 15th overall pick in the 2025 draft, the Falcons picked Jalon Walker, the edge rusher out of Georgia. Later, they traded their 2026 first-round pick to the Rams for the 26th overall pick. With that, they drafted James Pearce Jr., the edge rusher from Tennessee … and the first-round pick they sent to L.A. ended up being 13th overall. Woof.
Anyways, both guys ended up having a pretty solid rookie season, and it looked like they might be onto something with their pass rush. Then this offseason came, and Pearce had some pretty nasty legal stuff happen. Now he’s looking down the barrel of a big-time suspension.
So it was going to be Walker’s time to shine. He was going to have to be the guy who was going to have to come up big in those key pass rush snaps … But he tore his ACL in the first week of August, and now he’s missing the entire season.
The Falcons made a huge gamble during that 2025 draft, and it really has not paid off for them at all. Maybe it will down the line, but all you can do now is look at them and say, “Yikes.”
Makai Lemon, Wide Receiver, Philadelphia Eagles
- Hamstring
The Eagles were never going to get one single person who was going to replace A.J. Brown this offseason. Instead, they spent a bunch of resources getting a bunch of guys who could maybe add up: Dontayvion Wicks, Hollywood Brown, and Elijah Moore were the veterans, and they drafted Makai Lemon (first round) and Eli Stowers (second round).
Lemon’s a smaller, mostly-slot receiver who made a name for himself by having awesome hands and an uncanny ability to bounce off tackles; all good stuff … But he’s a rookie, and he needs to get reps with the offense. That’s not only going to help him, but Jalen Hurts has been slightly Aaron Rodgers-esque when it comes to wanting to trust his targets before he makes them a consistent piece of the offense. Has that been because of the matchup-dependent nature of the offense in the past, or is that who Hurts is as a quarterback? We’ll see.
Regardless, Lemon missed a whole lot of the spring workouts with a hamstring thing, and now he’s missing a whole lot of training camp reps because of it.
It would’ve been awesome if he were to go into the season with his name as the WR2 etched in stone, but guys like Wicks, Moore, and Darius Cooper (2025 UDFA) are lighting it up in practice. If you’re looking at the Eagles depth chart right now, it’d be hard to put Lemon above two or three of those guys … and if you did, it’d just be based on his draft stock.
By no means is this a season-ending injury or anything like that (cross your fingers and knock on wood), but it’s going to be an uphill battle for the young cat to earn a starting spot.
Ricky Pearsall (and every other receiver), San Francisco 49ers
- PCL (knee stuff)
It really feels like three-quarters of the 49ers’ roster are dealing with some kind of injury right now. Mike Evans is dealing with a quad, Nick Bosa is still dealing with the aftermath of his ACL from last season, De’Zhaun Stribling (second-round rookie) is dealing with a hammy, Christian Kirk is dealing with a calf … and that’s just the highlights.
The one guy who is completely out for the season is Ricky Pearsall … and buddy, this guy just can’t catch a break.
If you don’t remember, he was the 49ers' first-round pick in the 2024 draft. In September of that year, he was shot in the chest during an armed robbery and ended up playing in October (which is incredible). As you would imagine, he never really got going, and ended the season with 31 catches for 400 yards and three touchdowns.
In 2025, he played in the first four games of the season, and looked pretty solid with over 100 receiving yards in two of those games. But in that Week 4 game, he hurt his PCL and missed the next six games. When he came back in Week 11, it looked like the knee was still giving him trouble, and he was a nonfactor.
Going into this season, things were looking up. Pearsall was a notable part of practice for the first two days … and then on Day 3, he was listed on the practice report as a Did Not Practice with a swollen knee. Three days later, it was reported that he was going to have season-ending knee surgery on the PCL injury from 2025.
Drafting is the only thing the 49ers have been worse at than staying healthy, and the one young skill position player that showed any kind of real promise is out for the season. This is a tough one to come back from, especially with how dinged up the rest of the roster is already.
Coby Bryant, Safety, Chicago Bears
- Knee (Hyperextended)
The Bears defense did one thing right last year, and that was force turnovers … which is a great thing to be great at, but now a bunch of the guys they were relying on for that are gone.
Kevin Byard went to the Patriots, Nahshon Wright went to the Jets, Tremaine Edmunds went to the Giants, C.J. Gardner-Johnson went to the Bills. Those guys accounted for 18 of the defense's 23 total interceptions. Needless to say: they had some work to do in the offseason. One of the first things they did was sign Coby Bryant, the safety from Seattle, in free agency.
Bryant is a good ball player. He’s a ball hawk, a human SAM battery, and he brings a level of physicality to the defense that he showcased in the Seahawks' Super Bowl run. He hyperextended his knee, which caused a bone bruise and a small fracture at the beginning of August. Initially, it looked like a season-ender, but it sounds like he’ll be back at some point around late September to mid-October. That’s good, but it still really stinks.
That means the Bears are going to have to roll out an already-weak defense with a secondary that’s severely lacking in proven talent.
Laremy Tunsil, Left Tackle, Washington Commanders
- Triceps
Going into training camp, we could all see that the Commanders’ offensive line wasn’t great, but it had a couple of consistently good guys in Sam Cosmi at right guard and Laremy Tunsil at left tackle. Now it’s just Cosmi because Laremy Tunsil tore his triceps and is having surgery. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s out for the season ….
Remember back in 2024: the Eagles defensive end tore his triceps in a Week 12 game against the Rams, and he came back to play in the Super Bowl 12 weeks later. He did retear it again in that game, but he did come back to play. So it is possible that he comes back, but it’s not looking good.
You could argue that Tunsil was the best and most consistent player on that offense. Sure, Jayden Daniels was really good in 2024, but Tunsil has been really good since 2019. This dude was the absolute truth. This is a massive loss for a team and unit that’s hungry for elite players.
To make this worse, the Commanders traded a 2025 second and seventh, and 2026 second and fourth round picks for Tunsil. That’s a crazy amount of resources that they dumped into the guy. Sure, they could maybe be able to trade for someone really good … but teams aren’t going to get rid of a premium player who plays at a premium position. On top of that, Tunsil still has guaranteed money through the 2027 season. Are the Commanders going to dump even more resources into that position? I’d bet not, and I’d also bet that they’re kind of just out of luck in 2026.
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