ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos defensive end Derek Wolfe took to social media on Saturday to say he “dodged a bullet” with a right ankle injury after he had been carted off the field during practice.
Wolfe found himself in a pile during a running play during a team drill early in practice — tackle Menelik Watson limped, flexing his own right leg following the play — and stayed down. Trainers helped Wolfe onto a cart, and he was taken to the locker room.
Derek Wolfe suffered a stinger to his right shoulder earlier in training camp. AP Photo/Paul Jasienski
Wolfe later expressed his relief on Twitter that the injury wasn’t as serious as it initially appeared when trainers helped him into the Broncos’ complex, as he couldn’t put weight on his right leg.
Wolfe also posted a picture of his swollen ankle after he had an MRI. In a text to ESPN’s Josina Anderson Wolfe, he said the injury was a sprain and that he would be ready for the Sept. 11 regular-season opener against the San Diego Chargers.
Broncos coach Vance Joseph said following the team’s practice that the preliminary exam by the medical staff showed “the first look, it wasn’t serious.”
Wolfe suffered a stinger early in training camp and was removed from drills for the remainder of that practice, but he returned to practice quickly in the days that followed.
Like the rest of the Broncos’ starting defense, Wolfe didn’t get much work in Thursday night’s preseason opener in Chicago. Wolfe played just three plays in the Broncos’ 24-17 victory at Soldier Field.
The starting defense played the opening three plays but were taken out of the game after cornerback Chris Harris Jr. returned an interception 50 yards for a touchdown on the third play of the game.
The Broncos have wrestled with some high-profile injuries so far in camp; running back Devontae Booker (left wrist) and linebacker Shane Ray (left wrist) will miss the entire preseason. Defensive end Billy Winn suffered a season-ending knee injury in the win over the Bears as he tore his right ACL.
The Broncos signed defensive lineman Nelson Adams, who had recently been waived by the Pittsburgh Steelers, when Winn was formally moved to injured reserve.
Hue Jackson is not ready to name DeShone Kizer the Cleveland Browns’ starting quarterback, but Jackson said that every possibility is on the table as the Browns head into an extended practice week before the second preseason game.
“I think there’s a process to all of this,” Jackson said on a conference call on Friday, the day after the Browns had beaten the New Orleans Saints in the preseason opener. “And I think we’re just in the beginning phase of it for him. You want to do what’s best for your team and for your players, not just because people see a bomb that’s thrown down the field for 45 yards.
“There’s more to playing quarterback than just that. We’re not there yet.”
Kizer created a buzz with his second half, when he completed two passes of at least 45 yards, one for the game-winning touchdown with 1:52 left. He finished the half with 184 yards passing while playing against second- and third-team members of the Saints defense.
Jackson said he was pleased that Kizer made plays with his arm and legs, and that he “stood in the pocket with poise.” He said that calling plays in the huddle and some pre-snap reads continue to be occasional challenges for the rookie.
“He’ll be the first to tell you that there were some things that were not DeShone Kizer-like from practice,” Jackson said. “Some things he needs to work through and continue to get better at. But those things are huge things in games. A lot of those things go unnoticed, but me and him both know there are some things he has to get better at.”
Jackson emphasized it’s simply “too soon” to just say Kizer is the guy.
“I think DeShone did some really good things,” Jackson said. “I think there are some things we have to get cleaned up with him really quickly. But did he take a step? Yes, he did. Obviously he did.”
Jackson will review how he wants to handle a lengthy period of practice ahead, though. The Browns next preseason game isn’t until Aug. 21 against the Giants, and the team will practice six days in a row beginning Saturday.
“It’s the making of a quarterback,” Jackson said. “I think we all know that. It’s the raising of a quarterback. I think that takes time. I don’t think you do things out of a knee-jerk reaction. You don’t make decisions to make them. You kind of let things play themselves out, and they will.
“If a guy is good enough and deserving of the opportunity, trust me, we’re not in a position where we wouldn’t give the best player an opportunity. We’ll continue to work through this, and when we think the time is right, whenever that is, then we’ll make that decision.”
Part of what Jackson is examining is how to handle this practice time, which could provide an excellent opportunity for Kizer to get more reps with the first team against the first team. Kizer could get more time against the Giants’ starters, or he could move up to second team to see better quality defenders to help assess where he is.
“I’m going to think through all these scenarios, I really am,” Jackson said. “I’m going to look at this through these next practices and what it should look like when we get ready to play on Monday night.
“All these things are on the table. Nothing’s off the table. We’ll really look through this and see where we are. But I think right now I’m not in a position to say where I am.”
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The expectations for Jacksonville Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette are sky high.
He’s the odds-on favorite to be the NFL Rookie of the Year.
The best running back in franchise history called him a “beast.”
Executive VP of football operations Tom Coughlin told Fournette they drafted him fourth overall “to put the ball in the end zone.”
Win awards. Surpass 1,200 yards. Score touchdowns. Elevate a franchise that hasn’t had a winning record since 2007 and has lost 11 or more games each of the past six seasons. All that is falling upon the broad shoulders of a 22-year-old who will be playing in his first NFL preseason game on Thursday night.
Yet to Fournette, that’s nothing new. He’s been dealing with immense expectations on the football field since he first put on pads. He’ll attack these the way he did when he was starring at LSU and St. Augustine High School in New Orleans: by shrugging them off.
“To me, it never was pressure,” Fournette said. “You expect that from yourself. All the work you put in, you expect to succeed.
“I’m a firm believer if you work hard, at the end of the day, you’ll get what you came for.”
Leonard Fournette broke LSU’s single-season records for rushing yards (1,953) and rushing touchdowns (22) during the 2015 season. Don Juan Moore/Getty Images
That’s not arrogance. That’s acknowledging history, because Fournette has met — and exceeded — the enormous expectations at every level. The NFL is just the next logical step.
“This kid was a legend when he was 5-, 6-years-old when he started playing football,” said David Johnson, Fournette’s high school coach for three seasons and now the wide receivers coach at Memphis. “He always had those expectations.”
Fournette was a youth football star in New Orleans. He was bigger and faster and stronger than the other kids his age and was running around and over everyone so regularly that opposing coaches were demanding to see his birth certificate.
At 12 years old, opposing parents signed a petition to get him banned, so it’s easy to see why Fournette was already a football legend in New Orleans by the time he set foot at St. Augustine High School in 2008. It didn’t take long for the legend to grow, either.
Fournette rushed for more than 1,000 yards over his first three games as a ninth-grader, and that’s all Frank Wilson, the recruiting coordinator and running backs coach at LSU, needed to see. He offered the 14-year-old Fournette a scholarship.
“Everybody thought at the time that Frank Wilson was crazy,” Johnson said. “We are from New Orleans, and we coached at [Landry-Walker College and Career Prep] together and he asked me, ‘Dave, how good is he?’ I said, ‘He is the best running back I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s not even close.'”
He also was the subject of a documentary produced and directed by Kenny Chenier. “The Road to Stardom: The Leonard Fournette Story” premiered on Louisiana Public Broadcasting two days before Fournette played in his first game for LSU.
Even before his first practice with the Tigers, then-LSU head coach Les Miles compared him to one of the greatest athletes of all time.
“He expects himself to be something very special,” Miles said at the annual SEC media days in 2014. “I think if you look at Michael Jordan, he could not have been coached to be Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan accepted the role of expecting him to be better than any.”
And Fournette was. He broke the LSU freshman rushing record by gaining 1,034 yards and followed that up by breaking the school’s single-season records for rushing yards (1,953) and rushing touchdowns (22). Though he struggled with an ankle injury in 2016, he still rushed for 843 yards in seven games before declaring he was skipping his senior season.
Four months later, he was the fourth overall pick by a franchise that hasn’t had a 1,000-yard rusher since 2011 and ranks last in the NFL in rushing yards per game (92.1) since then.
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All the Jaguars need is for him to have the same kind of impact Ezekiel Elliott had for Dallas in 2016. Elliott led the NFL in rushing with 1,631 yards, but he did it running behind what’s regarded as the best offensive line in the league. Fournette certainly doesn’t have that advantage, but he’s still saddled with immense expectations from a hungry fan base — and even some of his teammates.
“He’s very talented, he’s everything they say he is, and he’ll be very valuable to this team.”
Pressed for what he meant by “a good amount,” Jack responded: “Hopefully over 1,000.
“I see big things for him and I’m sure he does himself. I’m sure that’s not putting any pressure on him; I’m sure he wants the same thing, probably even more.”
Those expectations are no problem, says Fournette’s former high school coach. He said he’s never seen a player handle that kind of pressure the way Fournette does.
“That’s unique,” Johnson said. “It’s not even close, because most kids will fold or do some things to kind of act out, but this kid, even since he was 6-, 7-years-old, he was able to handle it and able to deliver.”
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The competition for the San Francisco 49ers’ starting center job ended after just 10 practices.
The Niners released veteran center Jeremy Zuttah — who was expected to compete with Daniel Kilgore — on Wednesday morning, after less than two weeks of training camp.
“That was a tough decision,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “That was something we were really looking at last night. I think it says a lot about how Kilgore has been playing. He’s done a really good job in practice with that center spot.”
The 49ers acquired Zuttah in a March trade with the Baltimore Ravens; the teams also swapped sixth-round picks (No. 186 to Baltimore and No. 198 to San Francisco). Zuttah was coming off a Pro Bowl appearance, and his previous experience playing in offenses similar to Shanahan’s made him an intriguing fit.
At a personnel meeting Tuesday night, Shanahan, general manager John Lynch and their respective staffs spent time examining the roster and whether there was a spot for Zuttah.
Daniel Kilgore will be the 49ers’ starting center this season, winning the competition with Jeremy Zuttah, who was released on Wednesday. Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images
“It just looked to us like we weren’t going to get Zuttah a lot of playing time throughout the preseason,” Shanahan said. “He’s a guy I have a lot of respect for; he’s done a lot of good things in this league. I just told him this morning I had a hard time doing that to him, and [I] wanted to give him a chance to go somewhere else instead of keeping him here and making him go through that.”
“I’d love to keep everybody, especially a guy who can still play in this league,” Shanahan added, “but we thought it was better for him and better for us to move on.”
Zuttah, 31, spent his first six seasons with Tampa Bay, playing both guard and center, after the Bucs used a third-round pick (83rd overall) on him in the 2008 NFL draft. He was in Baltimore for three seasons before the Niners traded for him. He played exclusively at center with the Ravens. He has appeared in 131 games, making 117 starts.
Kilgore and Barnes have also been getting work at guard, adding to the versatility Shanahan seeks in his offensive linemen.
“I think it’s very hard to make a final roster when you have a bunch of center-only [players],” Shanahan said. “Then it’s just a domino effect. You want to see these guys’ versatility. It’s not always exactly who is the best, it’s how to fill out the best 53-man roster and there’s not always an obvious right answer.”
“Time frame, I haven’t been given one yet,” Shanahan said. “I’m hoping that he has a chance for Week 1 but I know that’s going to be a battle.”
In a corresponding move, the 49ers signed linebacker Sean Porter to a one-year deal. Porter, 26, appeared in two games for the Jaguars last season. He entered the league as a fourth-round pick of the Bengals in 2013.
