Past Newsletters

Sent to the mailing list 2 October 2026 · Free Newsletter · Explainer

Three Sundays in London

The NFL arrives in north London on Sunday and does not leave until the eighteenth. Three games, three consecutive weekends, and then nothing until next autumn. The Chicago Bears are touring five British and Irish cities across the same three weekends without playing a single down here. If you are new to this, the obvious questions are the good ones. Why is it always October? Whose home game is it? And what does a team get for giving one away?

The Fixtures — three weekends, two stadiums

Sunday 4 October, 2:30pm · Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Washington Commanders v Indianapolis Colts. Washington are the home team.

Sunday 11 October, 2:30pm · Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Jacksonville Jaguars v Philadelphia Eagles. Jacksonville are the home team.

Sunday 18 October, 2:30pm · Wembley Stadium. Jacksonville Jaguars v Houston Texans. Jacksonville again, in a different stadium.

All three kick off at half past two, which is half past nine in the morning on the American east coast. That is not an accident and we will come back to it. (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Sky Sports, Londonist)

The Designated Home Team — somebody is at home, 4,000 miles away

This is the piece that confuses people. An NFL team plays seventeen games: eight or nine at home, the rest away. Nobody gets an extra fixture to come here. A London game is always one team’s home game, moved. They keep the home designation, wear the home shirt, use the home dressing room and bank whatever the occasion is worth. What they lose is the afternoon in their own city.

So on Sunday the Colts are the visitors in a stadium 3,700 miles from Washington. Next Sunday and the one after, Jacksonville are at home twice in a row in a country they do not live in. That is a first: no team has hosted back-to-back home games abroad before.

If the Jaguars feel like the house band here, it is because they are. They have played fourteen regular-season games in London since 2013, eleven at Wembley and three at Tottenham. Their head coach Liam Coen calls London “undoubtedly our home away from home”. (Sky Sports, NBC Sports)

The Calendar — why it is always October

The league has never put a single sentence to this, and we are not going to invent one. What is on the record are the constraints, and together they make October look less like a choice and more like the only space on the shelf.

They are fitted first. The NFL’s own account of how the schedule is built says the international games are “a particular focus early in the process”, and that the makers consider “where a team plays in the week prior to an international game and whether or not they have a bye week following the game”. Pair a trip with a bye and you have used up two fixed points in that team’s season. There are only so many weeks where that works for nine different teams.

The grounds belong to somebody else. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is the only stadium purpose-built for NFL games outside the United States, with a retractable grass pitch and a second, artificial field underneath it that belongs to the NFL, plus its own dressing rooms and media areas. It is a remarkable piece of engineering and it still does not change the basic problem: the building is a Premier League club’s home first, Wembley has a calendar of its own, and the dates have to be found inside somebody else’s season. The league says its schedule makers work around events that “put undue stress on the playing surface”. A football pitch in February is not what you want to land a 300-pound defensive line on.

And the half-two kickoff is the point. Half past two here is 9:30 in the morning in New York, which creates a television window that did not previously exist, ahead of the ordinary Sunday slate rather than instead of it. That window is worth having while there is a full card of American football behind it. In January there is no slate to lead into.

Add those together and the window runs from the opening weeks to roughly the middle of the season. In 2026 the nine overseas games fall between Week 1 and Week 11, and London has Weeks 4, 5 and 6. (NFL Football Operations, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Yahoo Sports)

The Cost — who gives up a home game, and why

Every team is now expected to play a home game abroad at least once every four years, and the league has removed the rule that let teams protect two home dates from being moved. The volunteering is therefore somewhat theoretical. What varies is whether a team is making the best of it or making a trade.

Jacksonville are making a trade, and a clear-eyed one. EverBank Stadium is being rebuilt around them. The upper deck is closed, capacity is down to 42,507, and they will play six regular-season home games in Jacksonville this year instead of the usual eight or nine. Jaguars president Mark Lamping put the arithmetic plainly: “We’re getting a game back that will be in Jacksonville in the new stadium at full capacity, and we’re giving up a game at reduced capacity in the stadium here.”

The second London fixture was not even due until 2030. They have pulled it forward into a year when the seats at home are boarded over anyway, and they will take the 2030 date back later, in a finished stadium, with every seat sold. Given the choice between a half-empty building site and a full house in north London, that is not a difficult sum.

Washington’s reasoning is different. They played in the league’s first regular-season game in Spain last season, and managing director Josh Harris described that as having “reaffirmed the power of and excitement for the Commanders and NFL globally”. NFL UK’s general manager Henry Hodgson was blunter about why this market gets them: “there’s a lot of legacy Washington Commanders fans in this market.” Anyone who followed the sport here in the early nineties will know exactly what he means. (Jacksonville Jaguars, NBC Sports, Sky Sports)

The Prize — what it is actually worth

Here is the honest part: the league does not publish what a team is paid to host abroad, and anybody who quotes you a figure is guessing. What is public is the thing the afternoon buys, and it is not the gate receipts.

Under the International Home Marketing Area programme, teams are granted commercial rights in a foreign market for a minimum of five years: marketing, selling sponsorship, running fan events and youth football, selling their own merchandise. Six teams hold those rights in the United Kingdom: the Bears, Jaguars, Dolphins, Vikings, Jets and 49ers. The NFL’s Christopher Halpin describes it as letting teams “develop meaningful, direct relationships with NFL fans abroad”.

That is the real currency. One Sunday is an afternoon. A market is a generation of supporters who pick your team because yours was the shirt in the shop when they were eleven. Jacksonville have been working this country since 2013 and it is no coincidence that they are the team with two dates this month. And one of the six is not playing here at all. (Sky Sports, NFL.com)

The Roadshow — Da Chicago Bears UK Grand Tour

If you want to see what those marketing rights actually buy, look at the Chicago Bears. They have no fixture in this country, no stake in any of the three London games, and they are spending all three weekends here anyway. Five cities, five dates, and not one of them is London.

Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October · Bournemouth. Bournemouth Pier on the Saturday, then the Vitality Stadium on the Sunday for a watch party as the Bears play the Jets. Former defensive end Israel Idonije is there.

Saturday 10 October · Cardiff. Cardiff Castle, with a pop-up and a “Bear Hunt” with prizes.

Sunday 11 October · Leeds. Leeds Corn Exchange. Games, local traders, Chicago food and merchandise you cannot buy here otherwise.

Saturday 17 October · Glasgow. Exceed Glasgow, with a specialty food and drink menu, screen-printed gear and live DJs.

Sunday 18 October · Belfast. Belfast Common Market, and a watch party for the Bears at Atlanta. Former tight end Zach Miller appears at every stop after Bournemouth.

Every stop needs an RSVP and the spaces are limited, so if one of those is near you, book rather than turn up. The Bears’ own UK pages are where you do it.

Their vice president of business strategy, Melissa McDermott, says the tour is built “to not only reward and thank our incredibly loyal UK fans, but also to welcome new audiences into the Bears family”. Read the route again and you can see the strategy in it. Bournemouth, Cardiff, Leeds, Glasgow, Belfast: five places the NFL does not go, on the three weekends of the year when everyone here is already thinking about it, and a long way from the stadium where somebody else is selling their own shirts. They have toured here five summers running, and this October trip sits on top of that. That is what a market looks like when a team is actually farming it, and it costs them nothing in home fixtures at all. (Chicago Bears)

The Other View — not everybody wants to come

Not everyone is delighted. Browns co-owner Jimmy Haslam said simply: “I would much rather play at home in Cleveland than travel all the way over to London.” The players’ association has been careful too, with Brandon Parker saying any expansion “must be balanced against how it impacts players’ bodies along with health and safety data”. Tom Brownlee of the University of Birmingham, who studies this, points out that the body clock has to be reset twice, going and coming back: “That second adjustment is often overlooked but can be just as difficult.” (Yahoo Sports)

This Sunday — if you are going, or just watching

Washington against Indianapolis is the one with the quarterback question attached, and the Commanders’ situation has been moving daily all week. We are not going to print a starter here on a Friday and be wrong by Sunday lunchtime. Check the inactives an hour and a half before kickoff, which is the only time anybody actually knows.

If it is your first one: get there early, because the build-up outside is half of it, and the stadium fills long before kickoff in a way a Premier League ground does not. Expect the shirt of every team in the league in the same concourse, which is a thing you will not see in America. And at Tottenham expect the pitch to look wrong, because it is not the grass one.

In The Magazine — Issue 9 lands on Tuesday

Every game of Week 4 reported properly, two pages each, written from the teams’ own reporting and the local press as well as the box score. The Data Desk, the injury pages, Fantasy Corner, The Capsule, Under Review and the week ahead. This issue also carries our new Success Rate charting for the first time, and a page explaining exactly where our numbers come from and what we do not let them do.

Not subscribed to The Grid yet? It is the UK’s only weekly NFL magazine, everything in one place instead of scattered across a dozen websites, and there is a 14-day free trial so you can read two full issues before you decide.

If you are at one of the three, tell me which and what you made of it. We run readers’ comments now and a first-timer’s account of a London game is exactly the sort of thing the page is for. Reply to this email and it reaches me, not a mailbox, and I answer every one personally.

Enjoy the football.

Maxwell
Editor & Founder, The Grid

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to subscribers 29 September 2026 · Subscriber Newsletter · Issue 8

Issue 8 Is Out Now: A New Look, and a Monday Night Nobody Saw Coming

Good afternoon,

Three weeks in, and the form book has started tearing itself up. More on that below, but first, the thing we promised you.

The redesign you asked for

We said changes were coming. They are here, and they are the biggest we have made since launching eight weeks ago.

There is photography in the magazine now, and not for its own sake. The words, the analysis and the numbers are still what The Grid is for. But the right picture in the right place does something a column of type cannot, and the pages breathe better for it.

Beyond that there are layout improvements throughout: greater use of colour, cleaner pages, better separation between sections, and a lot of small decisions about spacing and type you may never consciously notice. That is rather the point. If the magazine simply reads more easily this week and you cannot say why, we have done the job properly.

What has not changed is the coverage. Every game still gets two pages. The Data Desk is still there in full. The depth is the reason you subscribed, and we have not traded any of it for prettier pages.

Some of these changes came from you. Several of the improvements in this issue exist because subscribers wrote in and told us what was not working, what was hard to read, what was hard to find, what they wanted more of. We read every one of those emails, and a number of your suggestions are now sitting in this issue.

I hope you like it. If you do not, I would rather know. Comments good and not so good are equally welcome, and the bad ones are usually the more useful.

Sixteen nil down, and Denver still won

Our cover story. The Broncos trailed the Rams by sixteen at half time and won by four, 30–26. Matthew Stafford threw for 390 yards on the day and still finished on the wrong end of it. Bo Nix has the front of the magazine, and the full review inside.

Chicago 27, Philadelphia 7

The Bears took Philadelphia apart on Monday night, and it was not close at any stage worth mentioning. Twenty points is a wide margin in any week; against the Eagles, at this point in the season, it is a statement.

Atlanta find something, emphatically

Two weeks ago the Falcons had scored sixteen points in two games and looked short of ideas. On Thursday night at Green Bay they scored thirty-five and won by twenty-one.

Bijan Robinson ran for 194 yards and two touchdowns. Drake London caught 194 yards’ worth on the other side of the ball — nearly 400 yards between the two of them in a single evening.

Jacksonville 35, New England 6

The weekend’s widest margin, and a hard afternoon for a Patriots side that now has a 29-point defeat to explain. The Jaguars, meanwhile, look like a team worth watching properly.

The Vikings move on from J.J. McCarthy

On Monday, Minnesota traded the tenth pick of the 2024 draft to the Giants for a fifth-round pick in 2027. He had fallen to third on their depth chart behind Kyler Murray and Carson Wentz, and arrives in New York as back-up to Jameis Winston, with Jaxson Dart having had knee surgery on Friday.

Ten starts in two seasons, and a first-round quarterback is a late-round throw-in. That is how quickly this league moves now.

Inside Issue 8

Week 3 Game Reviews — every game analysed, with the key stats, the turning points and what they mean.

The Deep Dive: six quarterbacks down in three weeks — and where each one got hurt. After the weekend Miami lost De’Von Achane for the season, the Giants believe Brian Burns has torn an ACL, and Minnesota fear Josh Oliver has torn a biceps. This piece was already written; the weekend only made it more relevant.

Built for Balance — inside the draft, and whether it actually does what it was designed to do.

The Week Ahead — every Week 4 matchup previewed, plus the UK TV Schedule: every game, every channel, every time.

And the rest of the magazine as always — the Injury Report, Stats Leaders for passing, rushing and receiving, Fantasy Corner on who to start, sit and trade for, and The Huddle.

As always, hit reply and tell me what you think. I read and reply to every one, and this week more than most, I want to hear it.

Maxwell
Editor & Founder, The Grid

This newsletter went to subscribers alongside Issue 8. The issue itself — every Week 3 game reviewed, two pages each, and the Week 4 preview — is in the Member Area for subscribers.

Sent to the mailing list 29 September 2026 · Free Newsletter · The Redesign

Take Another Look at The Grid

Good afternoon,

Issue 8 has just been published. If you looked at The Grid a few weeks ago and decided it was not quite for you, we would ask you to look again. Issue 8 is out this morning, and we think you will be surprised by how much has changed.

What has changed

The front cover is completely redesigned. It is not the magazine you may have seen before.

There is photography in the magazine now, and not for its own sake. The right picture in the right place does something a column of type cannot, and the pages breathe better for it.

Beyond those two there are layout improvements throughout: more colour, cleaner pages, better separation between sections, and a lot of small decisions about spacing and type that add up to a magazine which simply reads more easily.

We have online and offline readers, so you can enjoy The Grid wherever you are, even without a signal.

Many of these changes came from readers telling us what was not working. We listened, and a good number of their suggestions are now in print.

What has not changed

Everything that made it worth reading. Every game still reviewed in full, two pages each. The long, detailed articles. The statistics and the Data Desk. Every game of the week ahead previewed, with UK kick-off times. We have not traded a single page of depth for a prettier one.

The weekend, in short

Sixteen nil down, and Denver still won. Our cover story. The Broncos trailed the Rams by sixteen at half time and won by four, 30–26. Matthew Stafford threw for 390 yards and still finished on the wrong end of it.

Chicago 27, Philadelphia 7. The Bears took the Eagles apart on Monday night, and it was not close at any stage worth mentioning.

Atlanta found something, emphatically. Sixteen points in their first two games; thirty-five on Thursday night at Green Bay. Bijan Robinson ran for 194 yards and two touchdowns, and Drake London caught 194 yards’ worth — nearly 400 between them in one evening.

Jacksonville 35, New England 6. The weekend’s widest margin, and a hard afternoon the Patriots now have to explain.

The Vikings moved on from J.J. McCarthy. The tenth pick of the 2024 draft traded to the Giants on Monday for a fifth-round pick. Ten starts in two seasons, and a first-round quarterback is a late-round throw-in.

All sixteen games are reviewed properly in Issue 8, two pages each — the story of the game on one, every number behind it on the other.

Also in Issue 8

The Deep Dive: six quarterbacks down in three weeks, and where each one got hurt.

Built for Balance — inside the draft, and whether it actually does what it was designed to do.

The Week Ahead — every Week 4 matchup previewed, plus the UK TV Schedule: every game, every channel, every time.

Plus the Injury Report, Stats Leaders, Fantasy Corner and The Huddle.

Two ways to see it for yourself

Neither of them costs you anything today.

Start fourteen days free. Card details taken now, nothing charged today. Cancel any time before day 15 and you pay nothing at all. Two full issues land inside the trial.

Or take a whole issue, free, with no card at all. We will give you Issue 5, The Season Preview, in full: all thirty-two teams, previewed properly, before a ball was snapped.

Have a look, and tell me honestly what you think, whether you subscribe or not. Hit reply; I read and answer every one.

Maxwell
Editor & Founder, The Grid

This was a free newsletter, sent to the mailing list on the morning Issue 8 was published. The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers.

Sent to subscribers 22 September 2026 · Subscriber Newsletter · Issue 7

Issue 7 Is Out Now: Eight and Eight

Good afternoon,

Two weeks in, and this is the week the tables stop being decoration. Here’s what’s actually worth your attention.

One thing before we start: Issue 7 is out now. Week 2 Recap and Week 3 Preview, all sixteen games, two pages each. It’s waiting in your Member Area.

Eight and eight

Eight teams are 2–0: Buffalo, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minnesota, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle. Eight are 0–2: Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, the Chargers, Miami, Tampa Bay, Tennessee and Washington.

San Francisco has made the strongest start of all, scoring 62 points and conceding just 20 for a league-best +42 differential. Las Vegas is next at +26. At the other end, Atlanta has managed just 16 points in two games while conceding 54.

Both South divisions are in trouble

The AFC South has three winless teams after two weeks: Houston, Indianapolis and Tennessee. The NFC South has Atlanta and Tampa Bay in the same position.

Five of the NFL’s eight 0–2 teams come from those two divisions. It’s far too early to call it a playoff race, but five teams already have ground to make up, and that’s a significant September story.

Washington’s problem is bigger than the record

Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow on the final play of the first half at Dallas, the same elbow that has bothered him before. Marcus Mariota takes over in the meantime, and the Commanders’ season now turns on what the scans actually show.

Two head coaches already under pressure

Miami and Tampa Bay both sit at 0–2 with head coaches already fielding questions. The Buccaneers were beaten at home by Cleveland after losing to Cincinnati in Week 1; the Dolphins were run over 35–13 at San Francisco and now carry more than $180 million in salary-cap dead money into a rebuild that has barely started.

Two rookie-era quarterbacks, going the wrong way

Tennessee’s Cam Ward and Houston’s C.J. Stroud were meant to be building blocks. Instead both have losing quarterbacks’ numbers to show for their first two weeks: Ward averaging 4.4 yards an attempt in an opening defeat to the Jets, Stroud sacked four times by Cincinnati without finding the end zone.

Inside Issue 7

The Deep Dive takes on the Super Bowl era’s highest-scoring opening weekend. The Long Read asks how the quarterback was rebuilt. From the Stands has Brian Potter on forty years of looking for a team.

Two new sections this issue. The Week in Numbers puts the week’s box scores into tight prose on page 6. And How to Read the Data Desk, on page 44, explains what the numbers actually mean and how they get misread, because the Data Desk has been growing and it deserved a guide.

Plus the Injury Report on what Week 2 cost and who is back, Fantasy Corner on who to claim before Week 3, and On Your Screens with every Week 3 game a UK viewer can watch, and where.

New this issue: Have Your Say

We’re starting a letters page. It’s called Have Your Say, it begins in Issue 8, and it is exactly what it sounds like: your arguments, your corrections, your complaints about something we got wrong.

From the Stands has always been for the long piece about your life with this sport. Have Your Say is for the short, sharp one: the paragraph you fire off on a Monday morning because somebody has to say it.

Write to editor@thegridmagazine.co.uk with HAVE YOUR SAY in the subject line. Tell us how you’d like to be credited, and which team you follow.

A new voice on replay, from Issue 8

We’re delighted to announce that Roger Goodgroves, Head of Replay for AFLE, joins The Grid as a contributor from Issue 8.

Replay is the part of this sport everybody has an opinion about and almost nobody sees from the inside: what the official is actually looking at, what the standard of evidence really is, and why a decision that looks obvious on your sofa takes ninety seconds in the booth.

We’ll introduce Roger with a full Q&A in Issue 8. After that he’ll be a regular, taking some of the plays that went to replay and walking through why they were called the way they were.

If there’s a call this season you’re still annoyed about, now is the time to send it in. Same address, and we’ll put the best ones to him.

As always, hit reply and tell me what you think. I read and reply to every one.

Maxwell
Editor & Founder, The Grid

This newsletter went to subscribers alongside Issue 7. The issue itself — every Week 2 game reviewed, two pages each, and the Week 3 preview — is in the Member Area for subscribers.

Sent to the mailing list 22 September 2026 · Free Newsletter · Week 2 Roundup

Two Weeks In: Dart Hurt, Stafford Flying, Eight Unbeaten

The big stories from around the league.

Dart injury clouds Giants’ season

The Giants’ Monday-night defeat in Los Angeles came at a heavy cost. Quarterback Jaxson Dart left in the first quarter with a left knee injury and is believed to have suffered an MCL sprain. X-rays were negative, but an MRI was scheduled for Tuesday to determine the extent of the injury. Jameis Winston finished the game at quarterback. (Reuters)

Stafford and Adams put Rams on the board

The Rams bounced back from their Week 1 defeat to San Francisco with a 28–6 win over the Giants. Matthew Stafford threw four touchdown passes for 327 yards, with two going to Davante Adams, who exploded for 195 receiving yards. Stafford now has 427 career touchdown passes, moving him sixth on the NFL’s all-time list. (Reuters)

Darnold set to return to practice

Seattle expects Sam Darnold to return to practice Wednesday after missing Week 2 with a glute injury. Drew Lock has played well in his absence, throwing for 422 yards and four touchdowns without an interception across Seattle’s first two wins. Head coach Mike Macdonald, however, has made it clear that Darnold will regain the starting job when healthy. (Reuters)

Penix gets the call for Atlanta

The Falcons have named Michael Penix Jr. their starting quarterback for Thursday night’s visit to Green Bay. It will be Penix’s first start since suffering a season-ending knee injury last November. Atlanta is 0–2 after scoring only 19 points in its first two games. (NFL)

Daniels out, Mariota in

Washington will turn to Marcus Mariota against Seattle after Jayden Daniels suffered a dislocated left elbow against Dallas. Daniels is guaranteed to miss at least Week 3, although Washington has not yet put a timetable on his return. (NFL)

Caleb Williams week to week

Chicago quarterback Caleb Williams is considered week to week after suffering a hamstring injury during the Bears’ 9–3 defeat by Minnesota. The Vikings, meanwhile, have Kyler Murray back after he cleared concussion protocol and has been confirmed as their Week 3 starter against Tampa Bay. (NFL)

49ers winning, but paying a price

San Francisco is 2–0 after another convincing victory, but injuries are beginning to pile up. Receiver Demarcus Robinson and defensive tackle James Thompson Jr. have high ankle sprains and are expected to miss several weeks. The 49ers are weighing whether to place them on injured reserve, mindful that only eight players can be designated to return during the season. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Colts lose Pierce for several weeks

Indianapolis receiver Alec Pierce will miss several weeks with a heel injury suffered in Sunday’s overtime defeat by Kansas City. He will not require surgery. (NFL)

The standings: two weeks in, and already plenty to talk about

The early standings make for interesting reading: eight teams remain unbeaten at 2–0, while another eight are still searching for their first victory. The Raiders are among the surprise 2–0 teams, while the Chargers, Dolphins and three AFC South teams (Houston, Indianapolis and Tennessee) are all 0–2.

And with Week 3 beginning on Thursday night, the early-season picture is already changing rapidly.

The Grid brings you the games, statistics, leaders, third-down efficiencies, team tendencies, deep dive articles, long reads, fantasy, injuries, week-ahead match-ups, From the Stands and the stories behind the NFL, as well as your weekly TV schedule — every week, and all in one place. And from next week we are delighted to introduce Roger Goodgroves, head of replay for AFLE, as a regular contributor to The Grid.

Enjoy the football.
Maxwell Segal
Editor and Founder, The Grid

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to the mailing list 19 September 2026 · Free Newsletter · Explainer

Out, Doubtful, Questionable: Who Is Actually Playing?

Fifteen games are still to play in Week 2, and thirteen of them go tomorrow. Eight kick off at six o’clock UK time, then two at 9:05 and three at 9:25. Kansas City follow at 1:20am on Monday, and Giants at Rams closes the week at 1:15am on Tuesday. Before any of it, here is what Friday changed, and a plain guide to the words teams use when they tell you who is fit.

Thursday night, Orchard Park: Buffalo 41, Detroit 31

The Bills opened the new Highmark Stadium with a hand in five touchdowns from Josh Allen, three through the air and two on the ground. James Cook III carried twenty-one times for 135. It was Joe Brady’s first home game as head coach, and it finished with Detroit’s All-Pro linebacker close to tears at the podium.

“I played terrible. I’ve gotta be better.”
Jack Campbell, Detroit linebacker, postgame

It cost Buffalo something. DJ Moore came off with a shoulder problem, since confirmed as an AC joint sprain, and his availability against the Chargers next week is in doubt.

A Grid explainer: Out, Doubtful, Questionable

Every team files a practice report on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Each player appears one of three ways.

• DNP. Did not participate. He did nothing that day.
• Limited. A reduced share of the work, usually without live contact.
• Full. Everything, no restriction.

Then on Friday comes the designation that actually decides your evening.

• Out. He will not play. That one is final.
• Doubtful. The team expects him not to play, and very few doubtful players do.
• Questionable. Genuinely uncertain. Historically about a coin flip, though in recent seasons most questionable players have gone on to play.

Two more worth knowing. Injured reserve means at least four games missed once a player goes on it during the season, though teams may designate a limited number to return. And there is the part nobody prints: teams have to file a report, but nothing obliges them to be helpful. Questionable has become a convenient place to put a player a coach would rather not discuss.

The practical version, if you are choosing a fantasy side or deciding whether to stay up: out is information, doubtful is almost information, and questionable means wait for the inactives list, which lands ninety minutes before kickoff.

What Friday changed

Kyler Murray is out with a concussion. Seattle are without Sam Darnold as well, so the Seahawks and the Cardinals meet with neither side’s intended starter on the field.

Houston rule out four before Cincinnati’s visit: Nico Collins with a hamstring, plus Ed Ingram, Jadeveon Clowney and Jake Hummel. Collins is the one that changes the shape of the whole thing.

Pittsburgh are without Joey Porter Jr. for New England’s visit. New England have TreVeyon Henderson cleared to play.

Brock Bowers is doubtful with a knee and Ladd McConkey questionable, so the Raiders and the Chargers may lose their two most-watched players on the same afternoon.

New Orleans put their long snapper on injured reserve. Zach Wood holds the least discussed job in the sport, right up until the day nobody can do it.

Everything NFL in one magazine, every week

• Every game, two pages. All sixteen reviewed properly each week, with the full box score alongside.
• Previews and matchups. What every fixture is worth, and what to watch in it, before it kicks off.
• The full UK TV schedule. What is on and where, every week, plus the season schedule all the way to Week 18.
• The Data Desk, open all hours. Statistics and performance charts week by week, searchable and yours to download whenever you want them.
• Clickable throughout. Tap your team in the contents and go straight to their game review.
• Read it offline. Install it on your phone and the issue travels with you, no connection needed.
• The complete archive. Every issue we have ever published, yours from the moment you join.
• Tell your NFL story. Subscriber articles most weeks. You tell us, we write it.
• Print and digital. 34 digital issues a year, and eleven of them posted to your door. More than 60 pages every issue.

Fourteen days free, two issues to try. Card details are taken, nothing is charged on the day, and if you cancel before day fourteen you pay nothing at all. Then £7 a month, or £45 a year. Cancel any time.

Enjoy the games.
Maxwell Segal
Editor & Founder, The Grid

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to the mailing list 12 September 2026 · Free Newsletter · Week 1 Roundup

Since You Last Looked, The Grid Has Doubled in Size

When you last looked at The Grid, it was a much smaller magazine. I wanted to tell you what has happened since, because it has changed more than I expected it to.

Every issue now runs to more than 50 pages. This Tuesday’s Issue 6 — the full Week 1 review and the Week 2 preview — is almost 80 pages.

What’s in every issue

• The latest news from around the league
• Two-page reviews of every game, with full statistical analysis
• The injury report
• Readers’ stories
• League leaders, and the numbers behind the week
• A Deep Dive into a current NFL topic
• A Long Read on one aspect of the game
• The UK TV schedule, the forthcoming schedule, and a preview of every game next week
• Fantasy Corner, with the statistics you need to run your team

And it’s on your phone. The Grid now installs as an icon on your home screen, with an offline reader — so an issue you have downloaded is still there on the train, on a plane, or anywhere the signal gives up.

A champion falls over its own opening drive

The season opened on Wednesday night with a Super Bowl LX rematch, and it finished the way February did: Seattle beat New England 13–10. It was not comfortable. Sam Darnold went off injured on the Seahawks’ opening drive, and Drew Lock came off the bench to lead 13 straight points, with Jaxon Smith-Njigba catching the touchdown that turned it. Drake Maye and the Patriots had their chances and gave them away — a Super Bowl rematch decided less by brilliance than by who blinked.

Then on Friday the NFL played a regular-season game in Australia for the first time. The Rams were the designated home team at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and lost 27–7 to San Francisco, Brock Purdy throwing three touchdowns — to Mike Evans, Deebo Samuel and Demarcus Robinson. For a UK audience the kick-off time was the kindest of the entire season. The football, sadly, was one-sided.

The injury report

Sam Darnold, Seattle, hip. The scan brought better news than Wednesday night suggested — no fracture, an unusual muscle strain, the joint intact — but he is expected to miss the Week 2 trip to Arizona, with Lock likely to start. There has been no talk of injured reserve, and the team expects him back within a few weeks. The defending champions begin their title defence with a backup quarterback.

Brock Bowers, Las Vegas, knee. The most damaging news of the week for anyone who drafted him, and a problem the Raiders’ receiving corps is not built to absorb. De’Zhaun Stribling came out of Melbourne with an ankle injury, thinning San Francisco’s receiver depth further, though George Kittle made the trip with his Achilles and came through it.

Spare a thought for Arizona’s running backs. James Conner is on injured reserve with an ankle problem and cannot return until Week 5, and Trey Benson is gone for the season with a knee injury. That is the backfield Seattle’s stand-in quarterback walks into next week — two teams arriving at the same fixture missing the men they planned around.

A league that barely looks the same

If you have been away a while, the shock is not the football — it is the staff lists. Ten teams changed head coach over the summer: the Browns, Raiders, Ravens, Cardinals, Steelers, Giants, Titans, Dolphins, Bills and Falcons. Even Baltimore, the most stable building in the league for nearly two decades, has someone new in the top office. Our Coaches series has been working through them one by one, and it has been the most-read thing we publish.

The shirts have moved too. Myles Garrett, A.J. Brown, Trey Hendrickson and Kenneth Walker III all begin the season in new colours, with first appearances for new teams from Tua Tagovailoa, Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, David Montgomery and Jared Verse. And Aaron Donald has come out of retirement to rejoin the Rams — which, on the evidence of Melbourne, is a defense that could use him.

Still to come this weekend

Most of Week 1 has not been played yet. Sunday night brings Cowboys at Giants — Dak Prescott chasing a fast start in a brutal NFC East, against a Giants side with a new coach and a second-year quarterback. Elsewhere, Josh Allen against C.J. Stroud, Derrick Henry against Jonathan Taylor, and Packers–Vikings in a division that may be the best in football. Patrick Mahomes opens in an AFC West that has stopped being a formality, and the young quarterbacks — Bryce Young, Caleb Williams — get their first answers of the year.

All of it — every game, two pages each, with the full numbers, the league leaders and the complete injury report — is in Issue 6 on Tuesday morning, alongside the Week 2 preview and every UK kick-off time.

Give us another try. I think you’ll find a different magazine to the one you remember.

Maxwell Segal
Editor, The Grid

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to the mailing list 8 September 2026 · Free Newsletter · Season Eve

The Season Starts Tomorrow Night

Good morning,

Tomorrow night, New England at Seattle, the 2026 season starts for real. Here is where the league actually stands this morning, what is in the issue that has just gone out, and why I think it is worth £1.32 an issue to you.

The week so far: four things that happened while you were waiting

The champions were sold for $9.6bn. The Seattle Seahawks changed hands on Thursday, to the Khosla family, for the largest sum ever paid for an American sports franchise — comfortably past the $6.05bn paid for Washington in 2023. Most of the proceeds go to charity under the terms of Paul Allen’s will. The new owners are introduced to the crowd at Lumen Field tomorrow night, about an hour before the champions kick off the season in the same building.

Aaron Donald flies to Australia tonight. He came out of retirement at the end of August and is on the Rams roster leaving for Melbourne this evening. He has practised, but not in full eleven-on-eleven work, and Sean McVay will not say whether he plays: “Don’t have that sense quite yet.” Travelling and undecided is the whole of what is known, whatever you have read elsewhere.

Josh Jacobs is in court on Thursday. His first appearance has been brought forward from November to 10 September. He stays on the Commissioner’s Exempt List — paid, and barred from playing or practising — so Green Bay open the season without their leading rusher. His head coach and general manager have both now spoken, carefully.

Houston has five days to pay C.J. Stroud. Nick Caserio has set the opener against Buffalo, on 13 September, as the point at which extension talks stop until the off-season. Missing it costs Stroud nothing immediately: Houston picked up his fifth-year option in April.

Out this morning: inside the 2026 Season Preview

Fifty-four pages, published this morning, the day before the season starts. What is in it:

• All thirty-two teams, eight divisions. Not a listicle: what each side actually changed in the off-season, what it means, and an honest account of which of last year’s conclusions we got wrong. With a one-page graphic ranking every team’s offense against its defense, so you can see at a glance who is balanced and who is about to have a strange season.
• Thirty-Two Ways to Stop It. A deep dive on the defensive answer to the offensive convergence article published in last week’s Issue 4 — simulated pressures, the creeper, and the coaches building the counter-argument.
• Who starts the season hurt. The Week 1 injury picture, four pages of it, and the two significant absences that are not injuries at all.
• Fantasy, before you draft. The first waiver wire of the season after 1,180 men were cut in a weekend, and six pages of Fantasy Corner: tiers, ADP, and the last word before your draft.
• Twenty-Five Years. 9/11 at twenty-five: the week the NFL did not play, why Paul Tagliabue decided as he did, and what the league got right that time having got it wrong in 1963.
• The Long Read. More Than a Game — why this sport takes hold of people the way it does, and what the critics of it miss.
• From the Stands. A reader’s own piece: Matt Wills of Yeovil on watching the Falcons throw away 21–0 at Wembley, and then doing it again at 28–3.
• And the practical stuff. Our own UK TV schedule, the full 2026 schedule from Week 1 to Week 18, the Beginner’s Guide on scoring and the rules that matter, and Rookie Watch on the first-year players who may decide games.

Why bother, when it is all free online?

Because it is all free online, and that is the problem. The information exists, scattered across so many sites, podcasts and a timeline that updates while you sleep. Following the NFL from Britain has become a research project, and most of us do it late into the night.

The Grid does that part for you. One magazine, every Tuesday of the season, written for someone in this country and finished ready for the week’s games. Every game of the week reviewed properly — from team reporting and local papers as well as the box score, with the quotes and the injury news, not just a scoreline. The week ahead previewed. Fantasy advice, the injury report, the tactics, the standings, the numbers. Over fifty pages of it.

Thirty-four issues a year, from training camp to the draft. It installs on your phone like an app, and saved issues read with no signal at all — on a plane, on the Tube, or anywhere the bars run out.

“I love how relevant and up to date it is, especially for us long-suffering fans in the UK. I always buy the Lindy’s magazine but it goes out of date so quickly.”
Matt W, Yeovil

“Bl**dy love it — you have something that’s been really missed.”
Rob P, Barnstaple

The annual subscription is £45 a year. Across thirty-four issues that is £1.32 an issue — less than the coffee you will need tomorrow night. Monthly is £7 and you can cancel whenever you like. If you want it on paper as well, Print & Digital is £85 a year and puts eleven printed issues through your door.

I started The Grid because I grew up following this sport on a fanzine, long-gone printed magazines that we all remember, a friend’s VHS tapes and the American Forces radio service, and I could not understand why Britain had no weekly magazine for it in 2026. Now it has one. Every subscription is what keeps it coming.

Enjoy the season, whether you join us or not.
Maxwell Segal
Editor, The Grid

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to subscribers 24 August 2026 · Free Newsletter · Weekly Roundup

Three Weeks to Kickoff

Good evening all,

Three weeks to kickoff, and this is the week the NFL stops being a rumour and starts being a roster. Here’s what’s actually worth your attention.

One thing before we start: this week’s issue is already out. We’ve published a day early, so Issue 2 is waiting for you now rather than tomorrow morning.

Jeanty helped off at Raiders practice

The one everybody’s asking about. Ashton Jeanty went down late in Sunday’s session diving for a low pass, landed awkwardly, and couldn’t put weight on his right leg. He was carried off and the squad took a knee — never a good sign.

Las Vegas have said nothing. No statement, no timeline for one. It’s being reported as an apparent knee injury, but nothing is confirmed, and I’d treat every number you see attached to it over the next 48 hours as guesswork. When the team speaks, we’ll cover it properly.

Cleveland name a quarterback today

Todd Monken said he’d announce his QB1 on Monday, with Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders the two live candidates. Watson was booed heavily at home on Saturday and made postgame remarks he described as personal and disrespectful; Monken publicly played them down, which several outlets read as a tell that the job is Watson’s.

It may well have been settled by the time this lands in your inbox. Either way, neither man plays Thursday against New England — Dillon Gabriel and rookie Taylen Green take those snaps.

Cut day is now a Sunday — and it’s earlier

This is the one that catches people out. All 32 teams must be down to 53 by 6:00pm ET on Sunday 30 August — that’s 11pm here. The league has moved it off the traditional Tuesday.

Waiver claims are due 1:00pm ET on Monday 31 August, with practice squads due into the league the same day. Players with under four accrued seasons go through waivers; four-plus go straight to free agency.

Roughly 1,180 men lose their jobs inside a few hours, and the window in which they find another one has just been compressed. If you’ve got the old Tuesday date in your head, bin it.

Vita Vea gets paid

Tampa Bay and their Pro Bowl defensive tackle have agreed a one-year, $30m extension, ending the hold-in. Given what we’ve watched happen to the running back market this summer, the interior defensive line repricing is the story hiding behind it — more on that in this week’s issue, which is out now.

Pre-season Week 2 wrapped

Tennessee beat Seattle in Nashville on Sunday night. Cam Ward started and played three series without much happening; Seattle rested their front line, Drew Lock opened and Jalen Milroe took the second half.

Elsewhere: Raiders 22–20 Texans and 49ers 41–17 Chargers on Thursday; Jets 17–0 Steelers, Panthers 34–17 Jaguars and Packers 33–13 Broncos on Friday; Cowboys 34–13 Cardinals on Saturday.

Ins and outs

Out for the year: Chargers centre Tyler Biadasz to IR. Cleveland lost starting defensive end Alex Wright to a ruptured Achilles and signed veteran Derek Barnett in response.

Back on the grass: Chargers left tackle Rashawn Slater returned to practice on Saturday, a year on from the torn patellar tendon that cost him all of 2025. George Kittle came off the PUP list in San Francisco, and Christian McCaffrey rejoined practice after calf tightness.

What to watch this week

Pre-season Week 3 runs 27–29 August and it’s heavily front-loaded — four games Thursday including 49ers at Raiders and Patriots at Browns, ten on Friday, a quieter Saturday. Starters will be thin on the ground everywhere.

This is the week that decides the bottom thirty roster spots, not the top twenty. Watch the fourth quarter, not the first.

Issue 2 is out today

We’ve gone a day early this week — Issue 2 landed this morning rather than tomorrow, so it’s waiting for you now. 50-plus pages, as every Tuesday.

• The Great Repricing — our lead feature on the money moving under the surface of this off-season, and what it tells you about how teams now value a position
• Cut Day Countdown — the full mechanics of Sunday’s deadline, and what actually happens to 1,180 players
• The Attrition Season — why August injuries shape January more than anyone admits
• 1989 49ers — a look back at one of the great teams

Read it online in the flipbook or download the PDF. Yours either way.

If you’ve been meaning to subscribe, do it before 9 September. The season opener is Seahawks v Patriots — a Super Bowl LX rematch — and Week 1 is not the week you want to be reading someone else’s summary.

Enjoy the football.
Maxwell Segal
Editor, The Grid

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to subscribers 11 August 2026 · Free Newsletter · Weekend Preview

Pre-Season Week 2: What to Watch This Weekend

Camps are winding down and the roster is about to get real: final 53-man cuts land in two weeks, which makes this weekend's sixteen games — and four still-unsettled quarterback battles — the last meaningful evidence a lot of players get to make their case.

Four Quarterback Battles That Actually Matter

Minnesota — Kyler Murray vs. J.J. McCarthy

Murray has pulled ahead in practice, taking 16 of 22 first-team reps in the Vikings' last padded session. McCarthy is still shaking off a rough first full season (6-4, a 72.6 passer rating). Vikings host the Giants Saturday, 6pm UK.

Atlanta — Tua Tagovailoa vs. Michael Penix Jr.

Penix is still recovering from ACL surgery and reportedly needs another four weeks before full participation; Tagovailoa is managing a minor back issue but expected back soon. Falcons host the Broncos Friday, midnight UK.

Cleveland — Deshaun Watson vs. Shedeur Sanders

Watson has thrown multiple interceptions in recent practices, but coach Todd Monken still appears to prefer him; Sanders was electric down the stretch last season, going 4-0 as a starter. Browns travel to Chicago Saturday, 6pm UK.

Las Vegas — Kirk Cousins vs. Fernando Mendoza

No real contest here — coach Klint Kubiak wants to bring rookie Mendoza along slowly behind the veteran. Cousins is the Week 1 starter regardless. Raiders host the Cardinals Thursday, 1am UK.

Thursday Night Openers — 13 August

• Lions @ Bengals — first look at Detroit's backfield now that Jahmyr Gibbs is officially the league's highest-paid running back.
• Packers @ Steelers — Green Bay rookie Matthew Golden is reportedly catching everything thrown his way; Pittsburgh's first-round tackle Max Iheanachor faces another stiff test.
• Colts @ Patriots — Daniel Jones, a year removed from Achilles surgery, has looked sharp all camp. New England's Kayshon Boutte is still holding his own after the A.J. Brown signing.
• Chargers @ Texans — Houston rookie Keylan Rutledge has already earned a “SWARM player” tag from DeMeco Ryans, and Tank Dell is back on the practice field.
• Cardinals @ Raiders — the Cousins-Mendoza battle above, plus a live look at Marvin Harrison Jr.
• Titans @ 49ers — San Francisco's receiver room has been banged up most of camp, so this one's mostly a backup audition.

Friday's Slate — 14 August

• Broncos @ Falcons — Denver corner Riley Moss has reportedly been the standout player of Broncos camp. Falcons' QB situation above.
• Buccaneers @ Jets — Baker Mayfield's Tampa Bay contract talks have stalled; Geno Smith knows a shaky summer keeps rookie Cade Klubnik in the conversation.
• Dolphins @ Commanders — Miami's receiver corps is thin with injuries; Washington rookie Sonny Styles has been the most disruptive defender in camp.

Saturday's Marquee Matchups — 15 August

• Panthers @ Bills — Josh Allen-DJ Moore chemistry has been the highlight of Buffalo's camp.
• Browns @ Bears — the Watson-Sanders battle, live.
• Vikings @ Giants — the Murray-McCarthy battle, live — though most Giants fans just want to see Malik Nabers running routes.
• Rams @ Chiefs — first real look at a fully healthy Patrick Mahomes since his knee procedure.
• Jaguars @ Saints — Travis Hunter keeps rotating both ways for Jacksonville; New Orleans leans on Travis Etienne over Alvin Kamara.
• Eagles @ Ravens — Baltimore rookie Ja'Kobi Lane has drawn early Michael Thomas comparisons.
• Cowboys @ Seahawks — Dallas' Jaydon Blue looks explosive early in year two; Seattle's Tory Horton works back from injury.

Why It Matters Now

None of this weekend's games count, but for a lot of players it's the closest thing to a job interview the sport has. Cut day is two weeks away, four starting jobs are still genuinely up for grabs, and most of the names above will shape how their teams look come September. We'll have the full report card in next week's issue.

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.

Sent to subscribers 8 August 2026 · Free Newsletter · Explainer

Canton Class of 2026: What They Actually Meant

Five new names went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio today: Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly, Roger Craig and Adam Vinatieri. If you're new to the NFL, that sentence probably means nothing to you — American coverage never explains it, because it assumes you already know. Here's the five-minute version of why each of them earned a permanent place in the sport's history.

Drew Brees — the quarterback who rewrote the record book

Brees played 20 seasons, mostly for the New Orleans Saints, and retired ranking second all-time in both career passing yards and passing touchdowns. He led the NFL in passing yards seven separate times — no one else has done that more than six. Beyond the numbers, he's credited with helping rebuild New Orleans' spirit after Hurricane Katrina, turning the Saints from perennial also-rans into a genuine Super Bowl-winning franchise. He went into the Hall on his first year of eligibility, which tells you how uncontroversial the case was.

Larry Fitzgerald — twenty years, one team, no drama

Fitzgerald spent his entire 17-year career with the Arizona Cardinals — a rarity in a sport where star players routinely change teams. He finished with 1,432 catches and 17,492 receiving yards, both figures trailing only the legendary Jerry Rice. He made 11 Pro Bowls and posted nine 1,000-yard receiving seasons. Think of him as the receiver every quarterback wished they had: reliable, durable, and never once a distraction off the field.

Luke Kuechly — brilliant, and gone too soon

Kuechly is the outlier in this class, and the most interesting case. He was the 2013 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, made seven Pro Bowls and five All-Pro teams, and anchored the Carolina Panthers defense that reached Super Bowl 50 in the 2015 season. Then, in January 2020, he retired at just 28 — after a career shortened by repeated concussions, including one in 2017 that saw him carted off the field in tears. He walked away at the top of his game rather than risk his long-term health, and it's that combination — genuine brilliance plus an unusually short career — that made his Hall of Fame case a real debate rather than a formality. He's now the second-youngest player ever inducted.

Roger Craig — the running back who invented a new kind of stat line

Craig played fullback and halfback for Bill Walsh's San Francisco 49ers dynasty of the 1980s, winning three Super Bowls. His signature achievement: in 1985, he became the first player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards and catch passes for 1,000 yards in the same season — a genuinely new kind of production nobody had shown before. It's since been done only twice more, by Marshall Faulk (1999) and Christian McCaffrey (2019). Craig was the prototype for the modern "do everything" running back that teams now build entire offenses around.

Adam Vinatieri — the man who turned a specialist position into legend

Vinatieri was "just" a kicker, but he's arguably the most clutch player of his generation. In the January 2002 playoffs, in a blizzard against the Raiders, he made a field goal so difficult in the snow that it's still shown as one of the great kicks in NFL history — and it forced overtime in the same game the controversial "Tuck Rule" saved New England's season. Weeks later, he won Super Bowl XXXVI outright with a 48-yard field goal as time expired — still the only Super Bowl ever decided by a field goal on the game's final play. Two years later, he did it again, kicking the winning field goal with four seconds left to win Super Bowl XXXVIII. Three championships, and two of them sealed by his foot in the final seconds. He needed a second year of eligibility to get in, but nobody seriously argued he didn't belong.

Why it matters now

None of these five will play another down. But Canton enshrinement isn't really about the games — it's the league formally saying "these careers are the standard." If you're building your sense of what NFL greatness actually looks like, this is as good a starting five as any.

This was a free newsletter — The Grid publishes a full issue every week of the NFL season for subscribers, with match reports, the week ahead, stats, fantasy advice and long reads. This newsletter is just the appetiser.