The Blind Side Moved

Atlanta's Thursday practice report carries a line Wednesday's did not: QB Tua Tagovailoa, oblique, limited. By the instrument I laid out this morning, that certifies exactly two things: Tagovailoa took less than 100% of his normal repetitions Thursday, and the club was obliged to name a body part. "Oblique" is that disclosure. No side, no grade and no timeline has been reported by the club or by anyone else; Kevin Stefanski is scheduled to address the media Friday.

Two different documents land Friday afternoon. Friday brings the week's third practice report and, separately, the Game Status Report, both due by 4:00 p.m. ET, and only the second can say Out, Doubtful or Questionable. "Day-to-day," the phrase NFL Network's Ian Rapoport attributed to sources, appears on neither; it is a reporter's characterization, not a category. Then Sunday's inactives, 90 minutes before the 1:00 p.m. kickoff at Acrisure Stadium.

What the document cannot say

What the form omits, sports medicine can supply in general terms. Dr. Jeremy Alland of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush, writing about another quarterback's oblique last August, called the muscles "crucial for core stability and rotational power" and added that in quarterbacks "these muscles generate much of the torque needed for deep, accurate passes."

A passer can throw around a sore ankle. The obliques are the rotational link between hips and torso, where the throw is made, and no throw goes around them. Which side, and how badly, would tell you the rest; nobody has reported either. Reporters from the AP and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saw him reach toward his right side after the throw. That is where a hand went, not a diagnosis, and I will not make it one.

Derek Carr missed three games with an oblique in 2024, per NFL.com. Drew Brees sat out two weeks of training camp with one in 2014, per ESPN. Two quarterbacks, two answers, and severity, per Alland, sets the range. Day-to-day is the honest phrase for a grade nobody has published.

The third quarterback, on the record

Cooper Rush took every first-team repetition after Tagovailoa left, per the club. He has 16 regular-season starts across eight NFL seasons, and his teams are 9-7 in them. Fourteen came in Dallas, where he went 9-5, all fourteen under head coach Mike McCarthy, who coaches his first game for Pittsburgh on Sunday. The other two came in Baltimore last season, 0-2, with no touchdowns and four interceptions across four appearances.

And he throws right-handed.

On Monday I wrote that Pittsburgh already knew the only thing about Atlanta's quarterback that changes its plan, because Penix and Tagovailoa are both left-handed and there was one set of angles to prepare. That sentence does not survive a third quarterback. For a right-handed passer the blind side is the left edge, Jake Matthews's side in his 13th season, not Jawaan Taylor's. Whatever carries a handedness in the under-center, play-action offense Tommy Rees has said Atlanta will run, reverses when the hand does, the boot game most of all. That is my analysis; nothing published describes the install.

Alex Highsmith, to Steelers Depot on Thursday: "Playing against a lefty quarterback, me being on the right side mostly, if I go inside too early, the quarterback can see me. Sometimes, if we're playing a right-handed quarterback, I'm able to take those chances more going inside with different rushes." He added that Pittsburgh is "still preparing as if it's going to be Tua." That is an edge rusher describing two rush plans where Monday there was one.

One more line on that report: Jawaan Taylor, the tackle I wrote would own the blind side either way, did not practice Thursday, knee. The club gave no reason and I will not supply one. For every first-team rep after Tagovailoa left, the blind side was Matthews's, and the tackle whose side it had been was not practicing.

The question I am not going to answer

Michael Penix Jr. was a full participant Thursday, knee, for the second day. On Wednesday the club said he will not be active Sunday. Whether an injury to the man ahead of him changes a plan the club tied to Penix's own account of his readiness is unreported; no document filed this week answers it, so neither will I. I priced this sequence on Tuesday: if Tagovailoa alone goes down, Rush plays and the eighth pick of the 2024 draft does not. It arrived on a practice field instead, and it changed nothing Penix said about himself Monday.

Friday at 4:00 p.m., two forms appear. One will say how much of his normal work Tagovailoa did. The other will say Out, Doubtful, Questionable, or nothing at all. Either way, Pittsburgh has two sets of angles to prepare and one afternoon to learn which it needs. I said the blind side doesn't move. On Thursday, for every first-team rep, it did.