NFL

7:30 AM ET As word trickled out about Washington quarterback Alex Smith‘s situation near the end of 2018 — the 17 surgeries, the near amputation — the thought of him playing football again was secondary. The big question: Would he live a normal life? Within three months of breaking the tibia and fibula in his

2:07 PM ET OWINGS MILLS, Md. — John Harbaugh noticed someone had placed a face shield in his office this week, and the Baltimore Ravens coach thought about using it for Sunday’s season opener because his glasses fog up in the humid weather. “I dismissed that after last night,” Harbaugh said with a smile after

7:00 AM ET ESPN staff The Week 1 NFL schedule is stacked with great matchups. Our NFL Nation reporters bring us the keys to every game, a bold prediction for each matchup and final score picks. Additionally, ESPN Stats & Information provides a stat to know for each game, and the Football Power Index (FPI)

6:40 AM ET Zac Taylor, the second-year coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, was kind enough to return a call last week. His team drafted quarterback Joe Burrow with the No. 1 pick in April’s NFL draft, and I told him we were doing a story about expectations for rookie quarterbacks. His first response was basically

11:28 PM ET Eight months after losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs, the Houston Texans again walked off the field after a poor performance, this time falling 31-20 in the season opener on Thursday night. Everything you need this week:&• Full schedule » | Standings »&• Depth charts for every team »&•

11:20 PM ET Let’s not undersell this: The Kansas City Chiefs‘ 34-20 victory Thursday night over the Houston Texans is one of the greatest accomplishments in NFL history. Just as its own executives (improbably) predicted in March, the league opened its 2020 season on time — even with some fans at Arrowhead Stadium — amid

6:00 AM ET Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Josh McCown set a pair of NFL records Sunday with one swipe of the pen. He became the oldest practice squad player in league history at age 41, and the first active player to work remotely — like the other side of the country remotely. Football typically doesn’t lend

9:04 PM ET The Kansas City Chiefs have added an insurance policy to the record-setting, 10-year extension signed by quarterback Patrick Mahomes in July, a source told ESPN’s Field Yates. The move protects the Chiefs, who begin their Super Bowl title defense Thursday night against the Houston Texans, in the event that an injury prevents

7:47 PM ET METAIRIE, La. — Drew Brees has not officially declared this his final NFL season. But like the rest of his New Orleans Saints teammates, the quarterback is not shying away from characterizing this as a “Super Bowl or bust” season. “Hey, at this time, man, I’m on borrowed time,” the 41-year-old said

QUINCY AVERY, WATSON’S Atlanta-based private quarterback coach, began working with Watson his junior year of high school. “He’s not the loudest or the most boastful,” Avery says, “but you’re immediately gravitating toward his energy.” Avery’s father, Wendell, was a quarterback at the University of Minnesota, the former head coach at Savannah State, current receivers coach

6:40 AM ET In advance of a 2020 NFL season in which anything and everything appears to be on the table, it only seems right to put together our annual preview of how each of the league’s 32 teams could win the Super Bowl. It might seem wild when last year’s winner wasn’t exactly an

6:30 AM ET NFL NationESPN The 2020 NFL schedule kicks off this week with the Texans at Chiefs on Thursday night football, and NFL Nation has you covered. Big questions. Bold predictions. Breakout fantasy football candidates. Over/under picks. Record and playoff projections. Depth charts. And in-depth schedule analysis for all 32 teams. This is what

7:17 AM ET FRISCO, Texas — Dak Prescott has always seemed ready for the moment as the Dallas Cowboys‘ quarterback. If there ever has been any uncertainty during his time with the Cowboys, he has not shown it. From his first preseason game on Aug. 13, 2016, in front of 89,140 at the Los Angeles

3:27 PM ET METAIRIE, La. — Alvin Kamara mostly sidestepped questions about his contract talks with the New Orleans Saints on Monday, insisting that his focus is on Sunday’s season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But Kamara did counter the narrative that he was holding out from Saints practices during a recent four-day stretch,

6:00 AM ET OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Over the past eight months, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was unanimously selected as NFL MVP, got feted as the No. 1 player in the game by his peers and saw his face splashed across the cover of the Madden video game. Starting with the regular season opener

7:15 AM ET PHILADELPHIA — How in the world did Carson Wentz, the newly anointed franchise quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2016, wind up trapped inside a gas station bathroom, anyway? Wentz began cracking up when that memory was raised before practice last week — far enough back in time now that it’s just

10:26 PM ET PITTSBURGH — On the eve of the first regular-season game week, the Pittsburgh Steelers secured their defensive anchor for at least five more years with a historic contract. The Steelers and All-Pro defensive lineman Cam Heyward have finalized a four-year, $75.1 million extension, a league source told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler late Sunday

3:27 PM ET The Philadelphia Eagles are signing veteran quarterback Josh McCown to their practice squad, making him the oldest practice squad player in NFL history, league sources told ESPN. The Eagles are signing the 41-year-old as insurance in the event that one or more of Philadelphia’s quarterbacks tests positive for the coronavirus, sources say.