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We’ve made it to the part of the season where the guys who got hurt really early on i nthe NFL season can come off injured reserve and get back to playing. That means the reinforcements are coming, and teams can think about really turning their seasons around.
This is a list of the key players who are set to come off the IR soon, and what they mean to the team and to the general football world.
We’re not talking about guys who are hurt, and we’re not talking about guys who were on the Commissioner’s Exempt List. We’re talking about guys who have been on the IR for at least the last four weeks who are eligible to come back in the next week or two.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: There’s no frontrunner in the NFC South. If the Atlanta Falcons’ defense is going to complement a potentially high-octane offense and win a gettable division, they’re going to need to shore things up in the secondary. Getting A.J. Terrell back on the field will go a long way in doing that.
The weird thing is that rookie Aveion Terrell is the one who has taken over that starting spot, and he’s A.J.’s little brother. So Aveion getting benched for his older brother is a huge loss for all of the younger siblings around the world. Pour one out for our champion.
This one is more relevant for fantasy purposes, because Chuba Hubbard has been one of the gems of the season so far.
The explosiveness of the Panthers’ offense has been really surprising, and on the fantasy side of things, it’s been delightful. If you’re one of us lucky few who drafted Hubbard after an offseason full of Brooks hype, you’ve been getting RB1 points from a guy you took in the eighth round or so.
Right now, A.J. Dillon and Trevor Etienne have been getting the RB2 carries — and there haven’t been many of them. Brooks is more talented than those two guys, and they’re (probably) going to trust him to get more touches. That means fewer for Hubbard, and a worse time for us.
Getting a starting-caliber player back will be a massive upgrade over what this Cowboys defense has going on currently.
P.J. Locke is far from a household name, and he’s probably not an impact player on most teams. But the Cowboys' defense is unbelievably terrible, and any change is a welcome change. Things cannot really get worse for that unit.
Guess what? If Detroit's defense can get a starting-caliber player back, that’ll be a massive upgrade over what they have going on.
It just so happens that Brian Branch is a particularly awesome and aggressive player. It sounds like he’s going to be playing in Week 7, which is great news, even if he’s a defensive back coming back from a popped Achilles.
The rational part of my brain thinks that it’ll take him a second to get back to his Pro Bowl-caliber self. The weirdly real part of my brain has seen some of these high-caliber players come back from major injuries this year without looking like they lost a step.
We’ll see what happens with Branch.
You could say that it’s smart for the Packers not to pressure Micah Parsons into coming back too soon from his torn ACL. But no one is going to pressure a generational talent into coming back soon.
Going into this season, the word was that Parsons would return around mid-October. That meant that new defensive coordinator Jonathon Gannon was going to have to just buy time until he could get one of the most impactful athletes on the planet back on the field.
Well, it is mid-October, and we’re all just waiting for the notification that Parsons has had his first practice. That hasn’t come yet — but it’s got to come soon, right? They’ve got games against the Patriots, Panthers and Vikings coming up in which they’re going to need him if they want to stay competitive in the NFC North.
I don’t know if Tank Dell is actually an impact player, but the dude had a gnarly leg injury near the end of the 2024 season. Demeco Ryans says that he’ll be playing soon, and that’s awesome.
If his first catch doesn’t give you goosebumps, I don’t know what will.
If you trade your future for the reigning Defensive Player of the Year (an award that player has won twice), you’re really banking on that player to be the soul of your defense. Instead, Garrett has played 40 defensive snaps this year. They were all in Week 1, and they were all ineffective.
The Rams' season is hanging on by a thread at this point. If they want to be the Super Bowl favorite they built themselves to be, they’ll need their defense to be the foundation. Without Garrett, the chance that happens is pretty slim.
Apparently Aaron Jones has been playing with a jacked-up MCL this season, and if you’ve spent any time watching the Vikings running game, that makes total sense.
Minnesota needs usable bodies in the backfield. Jordan Mason isn’t some kind of nuclear player, but he’s going to end up being an important part of a playoff contender — until they (probably/hopefully) trade for a running back at the trade deadline.
It feels disingenuous to say that a rookie wide receiver who has yet to take a single NFL snap is an important player. It feels even weirder to say that about an offense that looks the best when it's moving the ball through the air, and this player hasn't been a part of that success at all.
But Jordyn Tyson was their first-round pick, and he’s supposed to be complementary to Chris Olave’s play style. It’s not crazy to think that unit can hit another stratosphere with Tyson on the field.
The Eagles' offense might end the season as the worst offense in the NFL. Jalen Hurts is done for the season with the blood clots, but really, this entire unit has looked terrible since Week 1.
A lot of that stems from the offensive line being absolutely abysmal, and a lot of that is due to injuries to starters and a lack of talent behind them. When Landon Dickerson is healthy, he's a top-tier left guard. When he’s hurt, he’s a liability. He should only come back when he is as close to 100 percent as humanly possible. If that’s now, perfect. If that’s after the bye in Week 10, that’s totally fine.
The fact of the matter is that he’s good to come back whenever he’s ready. Hopefully, he isn't being rushed back by a season going down the drain, and this s more about him actually being healthy(ish).
The 49ers need guys who can catch the ball downfield, especially with Mike Evans dealing with his laundry list of injuries. Maybe Christian Kirk isn’t as sexy of a wide receiver as he used to be, but he’s on San Fran’s roster, and he has functioning arms and legs. That’s enough to make him important.
I’m going to take this time to address Zack Charbonnet coming off the IR this week He’s been one of the two heads of the Seahawks running game over the last few years. Unfortunately, he tore his ACL during Seattle’s postseason run last year and has been out ever since.
Is nine months of ACL repair and rehab enough to make him as effective as he had been in the past? I don’t know. Maybe. It’d be sick if he was, but I’m not counting on it right away.
Jadarian Price, on the other hand, needs to be a good running back for the future of the franchise. The Seahawks drafted him with the 32nd overall pick this past spring, and he just hasn’t really looked all that dynamic — and then he got tossed on IR with a chest issue.
He’s going to be eligible to come back starting in Week 8, and he’s going to need to look good and healthy when he does. If that offense can get both running backs to a functional level, they’ll be able to realistically think about a late-season run.
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