The status of Las Vegas Raiders star tight end Brock Bowers for the Week 2 game against the Los Angeles Chargers remains up in the air as we head into the weekend.
Bowers tweaked his knee in the second half of the Week 1 win over the New England Patriots and left the game early.
On Thursday, Bowers said he was feeling better, but would not commit to playing. Head coach Pete Carroll said Bowers thinks he’s going to play.
“Feeling a little better. Just working on it,” Bowers said of his injury. “I’m not sure, we’ll see how it’s feeling throughout the week, but I’m hoping to play.”
“[Linebacker Elandon Roberts] is not looking at this game like he can’t play, just like Brock,” Carroll said. “They’re not looking like that at all. They think they’re playing, so we’ll see what happens, but they gotta practice through the week and make it through it.”
Bowers was listed as a non-participant in practice on Thursday, but did anything change on Friday? Let’s take a look.
Brock Bowers injury update
According to the Raiders’ Friday injury report, Bowers did not practice once again.
This is obviously a another discouraging sign for Bowers’ chances of suiting up in Week 2, but he has one more day of practice on Saturday, after which the Raiders will drop their final injury report, complete with game designations.
Any semblance of participation would be a positive sign for the star tight end.
The good news for Bowers and the Raiders is they have an extra day this week, as the Raiders are taking on the Chargers on Monday night. So, it’s possible Bowers can still play, even if he doesn’t practice on Saturday.
Raiders beat writer Q. Myers weighed in on Bowers’ status on the Locked on Raiders podcast and is getting the impression that Bowers won’t play.
“All the reports coming out of [the Patriots] game was that he would be fine to go back into the game if they really needed him. They held him out for precautionary purposes. But seeing the compression sleeve on his leg, the entire leg on Thursday inside the Raiders locker room, definitely had cause for a concern,” said Myers.
“To me, I walked away from [Bowers comments] feeling like, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t sound like he’s going to go.’ That’s just my gut feeling. Nobody’s telling me that. That’s just based off of Vinny [Bonsignore] asking about his knee and me asking, do you expect to play? And again, when he says he’ll see, you know, obviously he wants to be out there… He wanted to be out there on Sunday, but it really doesn’t sound like he’s going to play. He was very hesitant to say that he’s going to play.”
Something to factor in here is that it’s still very early in the season, so the Raiders may not want to risk putting Bowers out there even if he’s healthy enough to play but isn’t 100%.
If Bowers doesn’t suit up, backup tight end Michael Mayer would get a bump, as would veteran Ian Thomas. Las Vegas also has Carter Runyon and Albert Okwuegbunam on the practice squad and one will likely get called up.
For those fantasy owners who plan on taking it up to Monday night if Bowers isn’t ruled out before then, Mayer is the last-second add they should be targeting.
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