The latest news and notes heading into Week 1 of the NFL season …
• Travis Kelce really did push to play Thursday night against the Lions. In the morning, the Chiefs worked him out to see where the swelling and pain from a bone bruise on his knee stood. Kelce, to his credit, was honest with the trainers, saying he still had some discomfort in the leg, while telling them he still thought he could play.
Ultimately, it comes down to whether a player dealing with pain, or favoring a leg, can protect himself, and Kansas City made the (smart) decision to give him the extra time to rehab and recover—its Week 2 game against Jacksonville is 10 days away.
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The decision doesn’t look awesome now, especially with the way Patrick Mahomes’s receivers handled the ball in the loss to Detroit. But the Chiefs can much better afford a loss now than risk losing one of their three most important players for more than just a game. They’re also faced with trying to resolve the Chris Jones contract situation and what Jones means to a front that couldn’t get the one stop it needed Thursday against Detroit.
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• The Joe Burrow number—$55 million per year—will get plenty of attention, and it should, because of how quarterback money has exploded. It was just 11 years ago that Drew Brees became the first $20 million player in league history. It took nine years for that number to double, when Dak Prescott hit the $40 million mark in 2021. And it’ll take just another two and a half years for Burrow to top that by another $15 million.
There are a lot of obvious factors here, from the escalating television money, to the gambling money, to the growth of revenues digitally and internationally, with all of that flowing back into the salary cap, which fuels the pay bumps as the cap rises.
But really, this is what’s happening across sports. It’s not just an NFL thing. In baseball, Aaron Judge got $40 million per year and $360 million guaranteed from the Yankees, and there’s no telling how Shohei Ohtani would do this offseason had he not gotten hurt (and he’ll still do really well, I’m sure). In the NBA, Jaylen Brown got $60.8 million per year this offseason, and he’s the second-best player on his own team. And on a bigger scale, what the Saudi money has done to pay stars in golf and international soccer is obvious.
So, yeah, Burrow got a lot. Nick Bosa did, too, and Justin Jefferson will soon. But this isn’t out of line with what we’re seeing across sports.
• These numbers are why it’s hard to believe Caleb Williams (we’ll have more on him Monday) would stay in school for an extra year to avoid playing for certain teams.
That, by the way, is not about what he’ll make in 2024 from whoever drafts him. It’s about starting the clock toward the really big money, the kind that Burrow just got. Declaring after this year would make Williams eligible for a second NFL contract in ’27, rather than ’28. So he’d get to the money earlier, and eliminate a year of injury risk.
Besides, it’d be much easier to do what Eli Manning did than roll the dice on the right team getting the first pick (which isn’t all that likely when you consider it is inherently the worst team in the league in 2025).
• With Cooper Kupp down, Rams rookie Puka Nacua should be an interesting player to watch early in the year. No one is saying he’s Kupp, but he flashed some of the traits Kupp has brought to the table the past six years in camp. Like Kupp, he’s a bigger type of slot receiver with the versatility to play outside, and he’s very football smart.
At the very least, the fifth-rounder’s game has translated quickly to the NFL and given the Rams an intriguing layer of depth. And maybe he becomes more.
• Dolphins left tackle Terron Armstead hurt his ankle in a joint practice with the Texans on Aug. 17. Remember, Armstead was signed last year after Miami tried high draft picks Austin Jackson (now the right tackle) and Liam Eichenberg (now a backup guard) at the position over the past couple of years, and Armstead’s ability to man that spot stabilized the front in 2022.
Kendall Lamm, a 31-year-old on his fifth team, is next on the Dolphins’ depth chart at left tackle, so it’d either be him, or maybe Jackson or Eichenberg (which could necessitate some shuffling). Not ideal with Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack on the slate Sunday.
• I’ll be watching Monday night to see how the Bills sort out their skill positions. The plan is to play rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid plenty, and my sense is his production—the Bills sorely needed a reliable inside receiver as a chain-mover last year—will ride on how the Jets play him. If Buffalo struggles to block a really athletic Jets front, he could wind up being an important outlet for Josh Allen.
• While there were questions, plenty of them, on the Lions’ secondary this summer, Detroit’s brass was quietly excited about how many versatile pieces—guys who could play corner and safety, or inside and outside—it had in the position group. That, they figured, would allow defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn to better disguise coverage on the back end, and it didn’t take long for the rest of us to get to see it.
And, no, this isn’t about Brian Branch’s pick-six, which was the result of Kadarius Toney tipping the ball up in the air and Branch making a one-handed catch. It was more about how you saw Mahomes (and that’s on a night when Mahomes showed he’s still Mahomes, particularly at the end of the first half) have to hold the ball a bunch during the game, and how that allowed the Lions’ pass rush to get home. The best news, for Detroit, is the unit should only get stronger the more it gets to play together.
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• And to wrap up, I know everyone was thirsty for more Jahmyr Gibbs last night. But this, as I see it, is the way it’s going to be. Remember, the comp on the first-rounder was Alvin Kamara, and the Lions could take that one to another level since Dan Campbell spent four years with Kamara in New Orleans.
Kamara was NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2017. His carries, by week, that year: 7, 1, 2, 5, 10, 9, 7, 10, 12, 8, 5, 8, 1, 12, 12, 9. That averages out to 7.5 carries per game. Gibbs had, you guessed, seven carries for the Lions on Thursday night.
Now, Gibbs only had two catches for 18 yards (Kamara had four for 20 yards in his debut), and you can expect more from him there. But as to the overall prescribed workload (snaps, play-calling, etc.), I think last night’s a good indicator of the plan, which is to have David Montgomery play the Mark Ingram to Gibbs’s Kamara, and let Gibbs grow naturally into that role just as Kamara once did.
