Morning briefing: 27-Dec-24 – Jalen Hurts trending towards being ‘out’ vs Cowboys; CeeDee Lamb done for the season

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Bleeding Green Nation

Eagles Injury Report: Jalen Hurts on track to miss Cowboys game, Kenny Pickett says he’s ready

The Eagles listed two players under DID NOT PARTICIPATE: Jalen Hurts and Will Shipley.

While Hurts hasn’t yet been officially ruled out, two straight DNPs points to him not clearing the concussion protocol in time to play on Sunday. Even if he is cleared to play by then, which isn’t looking likely, he will have missed a bulk of the preparation for this weekend’s game.

Shipley is also seemingly on track to miss Sunday’s game with two straight DNPs while in the concussion protocol. The Eagles signing free agent running back Lew Nichols to their practice squad points to Shipley being out and the team temporarily elevating Nichols to be RB3 behind Saquon Barkley and Kenny Gainwell. Shipley mainly contributes on special teams, so, Nichols could be filling that role.

The Eagles listed three players under LIMITED PARTICIPATION: A.J. Brown, Nakobe Dean, and Josh Sweat.

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Blogging the Boys

Week 17 rooting guide for Cowboys fans

With the Cowboys eliminated from playoff contention, our rooting guide this week is based around securing the best possible draft position

The Dallas Cowboys may not care about their 2025 draft position, but their fans do. As the team continues to play for honor, dignity, and job security, we’ve watched them move out of a potential top-10 pick into the middle portion of the draft order. Now with two playoff-bound teams on the remaining schedule, how else might the Week 17 lineup help move Dallas down the standings and up the draft board?

If the season had ended after last week’s games, the Cowboys would have gone into the offseason with the 14th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

The key tiebreaker in draft order is a team’s current-year strength of schedule (the average win percentage of opponents faced), which isn’t finalized until the end of the regular season. Right now, Cincinnati and Miami have lower SOS figures than the Cowboys while the Colts’ and Cardinals’ are higher, hence the ordering among all of the 7-8 teams. But depending on wins and losses throughout the league over these final two weeks, SOS numbers will change and so might the beneficiaries of the tiebreakers.

For now, Dallas’ best chance of moving up the draft board is to lose its upcoming games to the Eagles and Commanders. But with QB Jalen Hurts potentially missing this Sunday’s contest with a concussion, and the Cowboys already winning against Washington once this year, it’s not crazy to see Dallas actually winning both games to finish 9-8. That would likely put them on the back end of the non-playoff teams, drafting somewhere in the 16th-18th range.

Falcons over Commanders

We don’t really care who wins the NFC South, so long as the runner-up still has a better record than Dallas.

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Bogging the Boys

Cowboys injuries: CeeDee Lamb will be shut down for the rest of the season

CeeDee Lamb, who has been playing through a shoulder injury much of the season, did not practice today. It has been reported that additional testing revealed that the injury is sufficient enough that he would be ruled out the remaining two games of the season. Jalen Tolbert (finger) was limited today. He is optimistic he’ll be available this Sunday despite the injury. Eric Kendricks (calf), who missed last week’s game, was upgraded to limited participation. Reserve offensive lineman T.J. Bass (thigh) did not practice today. However, fully participating in practice were Juanyeh Thomas (knee), Mazi Smith (back), and Jourdan Lewis (elbow). Chuma Edoga (toe) and Donovan Wilson (knee) were downgraded to DNP.

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The Athletic (paywall)

NFC East roundtable: Are Commanders ‘team no one wants to play’?

Entering Week 16, the Eagles could have made a case as the team to beat in the NFC. How did Sunday’s loss to the Commanders affect your perception of their Super Bowl chances?

Brooks Kubena: The factors that contributed to the Eagles failing to defend a two-score lead must be resolved before I can believe they can win the Super Bowl. Their defense failed to defend long fields twice against the Commanders, and their pass rush failed to bring down Jayden Daniels on two fourth-down scrambles.

Losing pass rusher Brandon Graham for the season hurts. They’ll soon get Bryce Huff back. But Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ mobility is what cost the Eagles a Super Bowl in 2022. The Eagles defense has increased this team’s margin of error. My doubts increased after cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell and Darius Slay were both burned on explosive pass plays.

Also, the Eagles special teams’ play has been consistently poor over the last several weeks. Jake Elliott made a 50-yarder, but his 56-yarder fell short. Can he be trusted with a playoff game on the line? Braden Mann’s botch of the opening kickoff, Luke McCaffrey’s 47-yard return and Jeremiah Trotter Jr.’s unnecessary roughness penalty embodied the sloppy play that’s recently been awarding opponents advantageous field position. Super Bowl-caliber teams will make the Eagles pay.

Are the Commanders going to be this year’s wild-card team “no one wants to play”?

Carroll: Daniels’ late-game poise continues to be enormously impressive. It’s amazing to see how comfortable he’s gotten as the season has gone along. His production (258 passing yards and five touchdowns to go along with 81 rushing yards) against a stout Eagles defense was fantastic. But perhaps more important was that he was able to pull off the comeback and maintain his composure despite those five turnovers (two of which were his interceptions). That’s what great QBs do. Are they the wild-card team no one wants to play? Maybe not, given what’s going on in the NFC North with the Lions, Vikings and Packers. Those are three of the NFC’s best teams, and two of them will be wild cards.

Do you think the Giants bring back coach Brian Daboll and/or GM Joe Schoen in 2025?

Yousuf: Giants fans have made their opinion pretty clear throughout this season: They are ready for a major shakeup. If ownership were to abide, I think this would be the offseason to do it. They already parted ways with Daniel Jones, who Schoen handed that albatross contract, so there’s a blank slate at quarterback. Schoen hired Daboll, so that’s been a tandem from the start, and it’s mostly been a failure. With the uninspiring way this franchise is going right now, it could be the best decision to cut all strings, let a new GM pick a new coach, and together they can figure out a solution at quarterback.

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Front Office Sports

How the NFL (and Netflix) Stole Christmas From the NBA

Netflix brought the NFL to a worldwide audience, which has been the NBA’s strength for decades. It’s part of how football took over December 25.

LeBron James is a huge NFL fan. He often tweets about his hometown Browns as well as the Cowboys, and even used to post his predictions for NFL games on Instagram. But following the Lakers’ last-second win over the Warriors on Christmas Day, James made sure to highlight the NBA.

“I love the NFL, but Christmas is our day,” James said.

The NFL callout on national TV showed that James—who, despite being four days away from turning 40, is still basketball’s biggest draw—is hyperaware that his league is losing its hold on Christmas. The NBA has played Christmas Day games nearly every year since 1947, while the NFL had only sporadically scheduled games on the holiday. But over the last five years, football has become a Christmas staple, and it does not look like it’s going away.

In 2022, the NFL had a tripleheader on Christmas for the first time. They did it again last year, and the NBA’s viewership average for its five-game Christmas slate dropped to a record-low 2.85 million viewers. Christmas fell on a Wednesday this year, but the NFL tweaked its schedule to accommodate two games.

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Front Office Sports

NFL Could Be Without Ratings Magnet Chiefs For Nearly a Month

The Divisional Round of the playoffs begins on Jan. 18. TV rights partners could be deprived of the NFL’s viewership juggernaut until then.

Andy Reid trotted into the Chiefs locker room following their Christmas Day win in a Santa outfit and announced his present to the roster: home-field advantage throughout the AFC Championship Game.

Kansas City clinched the AFC’s top seed following a blowout win over the Steelers during the opening game of Netflix’s Christmas Day doubleheader Wednesday. But Reid may have another gift for the team chasing the NFL’s first threepeat in the Super Bowl era: He has the opportunity to give his starters nearly a month off.

The Chiefs face the Broncos in Week 18, but with the top seed already clinched, Reid can choose to rest his starters. History shows that Reid prioritizes rest when his team has secured its playoff spot—he’s rested his starters on the final week of the season four times since joining Kansas City in 2013. That includes his starting quarterback: Alex Smith in 2013 and 2017, and Patrick Mahomes in 2020 and last season.

Because the Chiefs will have a bye in the Wild Card Round, the next game for their starters would be in the Divisional Round, which is scheduled for the January 18–19 weekend. That means Kansas City could have as many as 25 days off before they begin their playoff run.

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