- The preseason wrapped up last night with all 32 teams in action. And after three weeks of relatively injury-free meaningless football, there were some interesting injuries in the final week of the preseason. The knee injury suffered by Byron Leftwich isn’t as bad as initially feared, but Leftwich will at least miss the opener.
- Tony Sparano opted not only to play his starters on Thursday, but left them in the game for a significant period of time. And that decision now looks about as bad as this one. That’s because stud left tackle Jake Long was injured.
- But while Long is expected to be back early on, the Browns weren’t as lucky with rookie running back Montario Hardesty, who tore his ACL in Cleveland’s finale. Hardesty, who was expected to push Jerome Harrison for reps, becomes the second promising rookie running back to suffer a season-ending injury (Ben Tate went down in August). If bad things come in threes, Jahvid Best and Ryan Mathews had better watch out.
- The numbers show that Trent Edwards had a fantastic preseason, but Edwards might have edged out Matt Leinart as “Captain Checkdown” this summer.
- I have Wes Welker on both of my fantasy teams, so I’m not thrilled with these words, said by Welker after last night’s game against the Giants: “I still feel like I’m a long ways off from that personally. People say it looks the same. I don’t feel the same. So I’m not gonna put a number on myself.”
- Eagles centre Jamaal Jackson suffered the same injury Welker did at about the same time last year, and it killed the Eagles. Amazingly, Jackson looks as though he’ll also be back in time for Week 1. Jackson said last night that there’s a “99.9 percent” chance he suits up for Philly’s opener against Green Bay.
- Meanwhile, Raiders quarterback Jason Campbell appears to be willing to go 0.1 percentage point higher than Jackson, essentially guaranteeing he’d be ready for Oakland’s opener in Tennessee.
- Vincent Jackson pretty much has to be traded by 6:00 p.m. ET on Saturday. Otherwise, the disgruntled wideout will be forced to miss the first six games of the season, regardless of where he plays. Knowing that they’ll lose leverage when that happens, the Chargers are reportedly ready to allow Jackson to negotiate a contract with other teams. (Previously, they’d only permitted the Seahawks to talk to Jackson.)
- Kris Brown, the last original Houston Texan, is no longer a Houston Texan.
