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Jeremy Fowler
Free agent cornerback Asante Samuel Jr., who underwent spinal fusion surgery in April, has been cleared for football activities and plans to make free agency visits as soon as this week.
Samuel is in touch with several teams, some of which are in the market for a cornerback before the NFL trade deadline Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET.
In March, Samuel was the No. 14 overall free agent in ESPN’s pre-free agency rankings. Some team executives considered him the best corner in the class. But he went on injured reserve in 2024 and was limited to four games. At the end of that season, Samuel described the injury as a stinger in both shoulders but also a condition he has been dealing with since he was born. It became clear in the spring he needed the procedure.
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Week 8 of the 2025 NFL season was a historic one for betting favorites, as they went 11-2 against the spread to tie the best ATS mark for favorites in any one week since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. In Week 9, the underdogs got their revenge in a big way.
First, the Carolina Panthers went to Wisconsin and stunned the Green Bay Packers with a 16-13 victory on a last-second field goal. The Panthers came into the contest as 13.5-point underdogs, per ESPN BET lines, making their outright win the largest for an underdog this season and the largest in the NFL since 2023. It also served as the second-largest upset win in franchise history and the largest since 2000.
Carolina has been an underdog in all of its games this season, but is now 6-3 ATS and has won five of those games outright.
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Michael DiRocco
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jaguars wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter will be placed on injured reserve after suffering a noncontact right knee injury during Thursday’s practice, but the team is still trying to determine the extent of the injury.
Initial testing revealed that Hunter’s ACL is intact, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Friday. Hunter will go through additional testing to determine the extent of the injury and how long he will be sidelined, the source said, and no answers are expected before next week.
Hunter will miss at least four games, and the earliest he could return would be Week 13 at the Tennessee Titans.
“We’re currently assessing the injury just to determine the best course of action moving forward for Travis and for the team,” Jaguars coach Liam Coen said earlier Friday. “Feel bad for the guy, for the kid, for our team, for everything, but he’s in good spirits right now. Minor setback for a major comeback. That’s just the way it’s got to be.”
The injury occurred while Hunter was on defense during practice.
Hunter was coming off his best offensive performance as a pro before the Jaguars’ bye week, catching eight passes for 104 yards and his first NFL touchdown during a 35-7 loss to the Los Angeles Rams in London.
The 2024 Heisman Trophy winner has 28 catches for 298 yards and a touchdown. On defense, he has 15 tackles and three pass breakups. He has played 67% of the team’s offensive snaps and 36% of the defensive snaps.
Hunter was moving into the role as the team’s No. 1 wide receiver, partly because of his skills and playmaking ability but also because of Brian Thomas Jr.’s struggles (five drops). The injury is forcing the Jaguars to adjust their offensive game plan for Sunday’s game at the Las Vegas Raiders as well as for as long as Hunter is out.
“It is definitely not ideal timing,” Coen said. “Not that any injuries are ever ideal timing, but got to believe the makeup, his general attitude towards life and how he handles dealing with specific situations — I have a lot of belief in Travis as a person, as a competitor, to come back better than ever.”
Hunter’s injury is the most severe to have beset the Jaguars’ wide receiver room. Thomas has a shoulder injury; Dyami Brown has a shoulder injury; and Tim Patrick has a groin injury. Thomas and Patrick were limited practice participants Wednesday and Thursday, while Brown was a full practice participant Thursday after being limited Wednesday.
Jacksonville is in good shape at cornerback with Montaric Brown and Jarrian Jones able to step into Hunter’s role.
“We go back to training camp days that Travis was on defense,” Coen said. “It was Dyami, BT and Parker [Washington] rolling at the receiver positions and did some really good things. So I have a lot of confidence in these guys that it’s a great opportunity for all of us to work through a little adversity and the guys to go out and perform at a high level.”
The Jaguars also placed safety Eric Murray on IR because of a neck injury he suffered during the Jaguars’ 35-7 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Oct. 19. Murray, who signed a three-year, $19.5 million contract with $12 million guaranteed with the Jaguars in March, has started all seven games and has 34 tackles, four pass breakups, and one interception.
To take Hunter’s place on the active roster, the Jaguars signed Austin Trammell from the practice squad.
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Aaron Schatz
Cleveland Browns edge rusher Myles Garrett is currently tied for the NFL lead with 10 sacks after five last Sunday against Drake Maye and the New England Patriots. Despite Garrett’s huge performance, the Browns lost 32-13 and fell to 2-6 on the season.
Garrett has played for bad or mediocre teams for most of his career, going back to when Cleveland selected him with the No. 1 pick in the 2017 draft. In his rookie season, the Browns went 0-16. After a few seasons of floating at around .500, things have gotten bad again over the past two years, as the Browns are 5-20 since the start of the 2024 season. But the poor surroundings don’t stop Garrett from consistently being a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Last season, he was first-team All-Pro and third in the DPOY voting.
But Garrett is far from the only great player to be on a bad team. Who else has suffered despite playing at a high level? I think of these players as the Cortez Kennedy All-Stars. Kennedy was a Hall of Fame defensive tackle who played his entire career for the Seattle Seahawks (1990-2000). In 1992, he won the DPOY award and even got Most Valuable Player votes despite playing on a team that finished 2-14 with the worst pass offense ever measured by my DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) ratings.
There have been numerous examples of this happening throughout NFL history, so I narrowed it down by position and limited it to the 25 seasons since 2000. Below, I’ve picked the best seasons by players who were on teams that won four games or fewer.
Jump to:
QB | RB | WR/TE | OT
DL | LB | CB
Garrett’s current teammate hasn’t played well since he came to Cleveland in 2022, but his play was impressive before he left Houston. In 2020, Watson led the league with 8.9 yards per attempt and 4,823 total passing yards for a 4-12 Texans team. Watson was fifth in the league in total passing value that season based on my advanced DYAR (defense-adjusted yards above replacement) metric.
It’s hard to have a QB season this good for a team this bad because the signal-caller has so much control over how well the offense plays. But Watson is not the only quarterback this has happened to since 2000. Matthew Stafford of the 2012 Lions, Matt Ryan of the 2013 Falcons and Philip Rivers of the 2015 Chargers also ranked in the top eight of my DYAR stats for 4-12 teams.
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Running backs tend to rack up stats when they’re running out the clock in the fourth quarter for winning teams. But Tomlinson carried the ball 313 times for 1,645 yards with 13 touchdowns, even though the 2003 Chargers only won four games.
He led the league with 2,370 scrimmage yards and added 100 catches for 725 receiving yards with another four touchdowns. Tomlinson finished second in the Offensive Player of the Year voting behind Ravens running back Jamal Lewis, who had a 2,000-yard season that year.
The Lions’ defense collapsed coming off a 2011 playoff appearance, and Detroit dropped to 4-12 in 2012. But Johnson still gave fans something to cheer for amid the misery, setting the NFL record of 1,964 receiving yards.
Johnson had only five touchdowns with all those yards, in part because defensive problems meant the offense often started in bad field position far away from the end zone. In all, Johnson led the league in receiving yards, targets (204) and receptions (122); he averaged 122.8 yards per game.
In his final season in Kansas City, the 32-year-old Gonzalez caught 96 passes for 1,058 yards and 10 touchdowns. He was chosen as a first-team All-Pro for the first time in six seasons and led all tight ends in DYAR. In fact, Gonzalez is one of three players since 2000 who led the league in tight end DYAR on a team that went 4-12 or worse. The others were Which Thomas season puts him on this list? Feel free to pick from a number of possibilities, as he played in Cleveland from 2007 to 2017. Thomas was chosen as a first-team All-Pro six times, and Cleveland’s record in those six seasons was a combined 28-68. He is the only offensive lineman since 2000 to make the All-Pro first team despite playing for a team that had four wins or fewer. But he wasn’t even the only good player on those Browns offensive lines! Center Alex Mack was a frequent Pro Bowler playing alongside Thomas in the second half of his career. Garrett starred last season for a Browns defense that struggled everywhere else. He had 14 sacks and 47 tackles, and he led the league with 22 tackles for loss for last season’s 3-14 Browns team. He finished 2024 ranked third in the DPOY voting one season after winning the award. What about Garrett’s 2025 season? Although we are only nine weeks in, things don’t seem quite as bad for Cleveland compared to last year. The Browns’ defense finished 2024 ranked 25th in DVOA, and now it is ranked sixth. Cleveland’s upcoming schedule includes sack-prone offenses such as the
2:26 Eisen wonders what Garrett is thinking after Hutchinson’s extension Rich Eisen wonders what Myles Garrett’s thought process is after seeing Aidan Hutchinson’s big extension with the Browns well out of playoff contention.
Much like Garrett in 2024, Allen starred for a defense that struggled everywhere else. The Vikings were only 23rd in defensive DVOA in 2011, even as Allen compiled 22 sacks to come within a half-sack of the all-time NFL record.
Although the Vikings were only 3-13, Allen was second in the DPOY voting behind Terrell Suggs of the Ravens. This was the second time Allen was named first-team All-Pro for a team with four wins or fewer, as he also made it with the 4-12 Chiefs in 2007.
The Rams finished 4-12 in their first season after moving back to Los Angeles, but don’t blame Donald, who was as great as always. Although he had only eight sacks, he led the NFL with 31 quarterback hits and led all interior linemen with 44 pressures. He received three votes to finish fourth in the balloting for DPOY that season.
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David has played for much better Buccaneers teams, including the 2020 squad that won the Super Bowl. However, 2013 — when the team finished 4-12 — was the only time he was a first-team All-Pro.
David had five interceptions, seven sacks and 13 quarterback hits. I keep track of a stat called defeats, which combines turnovers, tackles for loss and plays to prevent a conversion on third or fourth down. David had 52 of them in 2013, the second-highest total since at least 1989, behind only J.J. Watt’s 2012 season in Houston.
Since 2000, no defensive back has been chosen as a first-team All-Pro for a team that went 4-12 or worse. However, Law had a very good season for a bad Jets team after leaving the Super Bowl champion Patriots in free agency.
Law had a career-high 10 interceptions, including a pick-six. He also had 62 tackles and 18 passes defensed, and he made the Pro Bowl. The Jets often used him on the opponent’s No. 2 receiver, and New York ranked second in DVOA against WR2s that season.
