Lamar Jackson Is Back, the Bears Paid a Fortune for Jeffery Simmons, and Week 8 Turns on Sunday

Lamar Jackson is back for Baltimore, and the Bears paid a fortune — two first-round picks — for Jeffery Simmons. Those are the two facts that define Week 8 before Sunday even kicks off. Add a historic trade deadline ten days away and one more season-bending injury in Washington on Friday, and this stopped being a quiet Saturday a long time ago. Sunday is where it all cashes in. Here is where everything stands.

Lamar Jackson is back — and Baltimore needed every bit of this

According to Reuters, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson will return to action against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday after missing three games with an ankle injury. USA Today reported the same timeline on Friday: Jackson turned in another full practice on Oct. 30, putting him on track to play in Week 8, and head coach Jesse Minter told reporters, in USA Today's account, "We do think we'll have Lamar this week."

Reuters reported that Jackson sustained a high left ankle sprain in the second quarter of a victory over the Tennessee Titans on Oct. 4, and that Baltimore went 1-2 without him, including consecutive setbacks in which it did not score a single second-half point. Reuters also reported that Baltimore averaged 29 points during Jackson's four starts, a number that dipped sharply during the three starts made by backup Tyler Huntley. That is the whole story in one contrast: with Jackson, this is one of the league's most dangerous offenses; without him, it went entire halves without scoring.

Jackson is not pretending he is at full strength. Reuters reported that the two-time NFL Most Valuable Player called the pain "bearable" on Friday after participating in all three practices this week for the first time since the injury, and quoted him saying, "I feel like I'm no longer a statue." Read that honestly: he is back, he practiced in full Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and he is still telling you the ankle talks to him when he plants. Against Josh Allen and a 5-1 Buffalo team that, according to Reuters, has beaten Baltimore three straight times in Buffalo, a 90-percent Lamar is both the Ravens' best hope and their biggest question.

The matchup itself is the early window's main event: Baltimore (4-3) at Buffalo (5-1), Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on CBS from Highmark Stadium. Reuters reported the Ravens sit in last place in the AFC North despite the winning record — which tells you how strange this division's season has been, and how little margin for error Baltimore has left.

Green Bay opened the week by surviving its own mistakes

Week 8 began Thursday night at Lambeau Field, where, according to NBC Sports, the Green Bay Packers beat the Carolina Panthers 27-19. NBC Sports reported that Green Bay turned the ball over three times, including a fumbled kickoff, and let Carolina climb back after leading 27-10 midway through the third quarter. The Panthers outgained the Packers 109 to 32 in the fourth quarter, per NBC Sports, and still could not finish the comeback.

USA Today reported that Jordan Love threw for a season-high three touchdowns, completing 30 of 41 passes for 288 yards, and that wide receiver Christian Watson had eight catches for 113 yards despite a chest injury that took him out for a significant portion of the game — he returned from a hospital check and caught a pass that helped seal the win. USA Today also noted the defensive context that makes Green Bay genuinely scary: the Packers have not allowed more than 20 points in any of their past five games, allowing an average of 14.6 points over that stretch, and they have done it without All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons. On that front, NFL Trade Rumors, citing Ian Rapoport, reported Saturday that Parsons is hoping to return on Thanksgiving against the Rams. If that timeline holds, a defense already playing like this gets its best player back for the stretch run. Good luck, everybody else.

For Carolina, the night was about attrition. ClutchPoints reported that the Panthers entered the game without cornerbacks Jaycee Horn, Mike Jackson and Akayleb Evans, then lost Will Lee III to a hamstring injury during it, and that head coach Dave Canales deferred trade questions to general manager Dan Morgan while saying practice-squad cornerback Corey Thornton would get an opportunity "real soon." The Panthers fell to 3-4, per NBC Sports, while Green Bay improved to 5-3.

Chicago just made the biggest trade of the season

The week's loudest move happened off the field. The Tennessee Titans announced Thursday that they are trading defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons to the Chicago Bears, pending a physical, with Tennessee receiving Chicago's first-round pick in 2027, its fourth-round pick in 2027, and its first-round pick in 2028, while Chicago receives Simmons and a fifth-round pick in 2028. USA Today reported that Simmons is the first defensive tackle in the common draft era, since 1967, to be swapped for multiple first-rounders.

The player is worth arguing about at that price — which is exactly why Chicago paid it. USA Today put Simmons' career line at 414 tackles, 72 for losses, nine forced fumbles, 46.5 sacks and 96 quarterback hits in 106 regular-season games, and NBC Sports reported he was a First Team All-Pro selection last season and a four-time Pro Bowler. The Bears enter the weekend at 5-2, according to the trade reporting, and just told the whole league they believe their window is open right now. The Titans, at 1-6, told the league the opposite about themselves. We break the deal down in full in our companion piece on the Simmons trade, published alongside this roundup.

Chicago was not the only team buying. Earlier in the week, Indianapolis sent eight-time Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson to Seattle and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to San Francisco, moves reported by multiple outlets including NBC Sports Bay Area, which noted that 49ers general manager John Lynch discussed factoring returning injured players — including Nick Bosa, whom Lynch said the team hopes to get back after its bye — into the club's strategy before the Nov. 10 deadline. This deadline is not simmering. It is already boiling.

Washington's Friday could not have gone worse

The Washington Commanders lost defensive tackle Daron Payne to a significant foot injury in Friday's practice. Commanders Wire reported that Payne is expected to land on injured reserve, and NFL Trade Rumors summarized reporting from Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo that Payne suffered the "significant" foot injury during Friday's session, with more evaluations to follow. Yardbarker, also citing Rapoport, reported the injury could be season-ending.

Commanders Wire reported that Washington's final injury report ruled out only one player — defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw, who has a knee injury from the Week 6 loss at San Francisco — meaning the Commanders will face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night without two of their three starting defensive linemen. Payne, 29, is in his ninth NFL season after Washington took him 13th overall in the 2018 draft, per Commanders Wire. There is one piece of genuinely good news for Washington: USA Today reported that quarterback Jayden Daniels fully participated in Friday's practice and is not on the injury report for Week 8. Sunday night — Philadelphia (2-5) at Washington (1-4-1), 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC — now looks like a game the Commanders have to win with their offense, because the defensive front they planned to lean on is simply not available.

The other injury that matters Sunday

New England Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown is questionable for Sunday's game against the Miami Dolphins after missing the past two practices, TSN reported, with head coach Mike Vrabel saying Friday that the team would evaluate him Saturday. TSN reported that a knee issue flared up this week, per NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, on top of the right high ankle sprain Brown suffered in the season opener, which landed him on injured reserve and cost him four games. Bleacher Report noted that Patriots executive Eliot Wolf said after acquiring Brown from Philadelphia in June that the receiver has a "degenerative knee condition" the club knew about when it made the deal. Brown returned for New England's last two games and played heavy snaps in both, per TSN. Whether he can go again Sunday is, honestly, the kind of decision that tells you where this Patriots season is: push a star whose knee is already talking, or protect the investment? Vrabel, per TSN, was not tipping his hand: Brown "just wasn't able to finish practice on Wednesday, so we continue to treat him."

What Sunday actually looks like

The rest of the Week 8 slate, per USA Today and AZ Central's published schedules: the early window is headlined by Ravens-Bills on CBS, with Minnesota at Detroit and Cleveland at Pittsburgh among the other early kickoffs. The late window brings Kansas City at Denver and the Chargers at the Rams. Sunday night is Eagles at Commanders on NBC, and the week closes Monday night, Nov. 2, with Chicago at Seattle — the Bears' first game since the Simmons deal, and a game the whole league will watch a little differently now. AZ Central reported that Houston, New Orleans, the New York Giants and San Francisco are on byes this week.

So the shape of the weekend is simple. Lamar Jackson's ankle gets tested by the best team in the AFC. A Washington defense missing its middle gets tested in prime time. And somewhere above all of it hangs Nov. 10, when the phones stop and every front office has to live with what it did — or did not — do. Chicago already showed its cards. The next ten days will show everyone else's.

More NFL coverage lives on our Sports front.