Jets lose two defenders on same day
New York Jets defensive end Carl Lawson will miss the season after rupturing his Achilles in practice Thursday, a devastating loss for a team seeking to turn the corner under new coach Robert Saleh.
Backup safety Zane Lewis also suffered a season-ending knee injury.
Both players were carted off the field Thursday in a joint practice session with the Green Bay Packers.
The Jets announced later in the day that Lawson had ruptured his Achilles while Lewis had torn his patella tendon and sprained his medial collateral ligament.
The loss of Lawson will force the Jets to retool their defensive line under Saleh, who spent the past four seasons as the San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator.
Raiders
A brawl that included punches and thrown helmets and had four starts and stops prompted Las Vegas coach Jon Gruden to send his players to the buses and end day two of a chippy jointpractice session with the Los Angeles Rams. On Wednesday, several skirmishes marred the opening practice.
“That’s enough of that crap,” Gruden said about an hour later at the team hotel. “That’s not good for football, that’s not good for anything …”
Saints
Amid public and political scrutiny, the team adopted a new refund policy allowing fans to relinquish their season tickets and get their money back. The Saints plan to fill the 73,000-seat Superdome for home games this season but have said that, in accordance with various local and state protocols, only fans who wear masks and show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test 72 hours before a game may attend. The Saints previously stated that fans who had chosen to maintain their ticket accounts for this season would not be eligible for refunds as they had been in 2020, when government restrictions prevented large crowds in the dome.
Elsewhere
Billionaire Stanley Kroenke was nicknamed the “most hated man” in St. Louis after moving his Rams out of the state in 2016. Now, he and the NFL are trying to move the city’s billion-dollar beach-of-contract lawsuit out of a local court.
“Extensive pretrial publicity” warrants transferring the case to a different courthouse, Kroenke and the NFL said in a filing this month.
It’s the latest twist in a yearslong fight that’s heading toward a trial in January — and threatens to spill confidential details about NFL finances into public view.