The 2026 NFL season is in full tilt with Week 1 in the books, but unfortunately that also means the injuries that come with playing the violent game that is professional football are also back in our lives. The biggest-name offseason acquisitions -- Los Angeles Rams All-Pro edge rusher Myles Garrett and New England Patriots Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Brown -- are sidelined for multiple weeks and plenty of other high-impact contributors were injured on Sunday.
Which players will be placed on injured reserve for at least a month? Who will fight to get back on the field after a week or two? Who will look to return in Week 2?
We've gathered the biggest early-season injuries from around the league, and we'll be evaluating each injury situation with a panic meter as listed below: Los Angeles will be without the 2025 NFL Defensive Player of the Year for an extended amount of time, which is a big deal. Garrett missed most of training camp, including a joint practice against the Dallas Cowboys, with swelling in his knee. The Rams, head coach Sean McVay and Garrett, thought he could power through the injury in Week 1 against the San Francisco 49ers, but that obviously didn't come to fruition.
Garrett produced just his fourth career game without a tackle on 39 defensive snaps and his first since Week 11 of the 2024 season. "Thought we would take an approach where he'd be feeling good enough to go contribute positive change and be the player that he's capable of," McVay said Monday, via ESPN. And so the next right thing for us is to be able to get this thing fixed." Los Angeles placed him on injured reserve, which means he will be out at least four games, and McVay said there won't be a timeline for Garrett's absence until after the surgery on Monday.
The Rams head coach said the decision for him to have surgery came shortly after speaking with Garrett and seeing his on-field limitations. He looked like a shell of the player who racked up an NFL single-season record 23.0 sacks just last season. Garrett admitted he wasn't playing freely and was thinking about how to move to stay healthy.
That's why the surgery is happening. "When I was out there, I was a little bit more focused on myself and trying to stay healthy than what they were doing, and that showed," Garrett said. "I wasn't who I needed to be for my team." There are a few reasons why the panic level is high for Garrett.
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