NFC Notes: Falcons, Panthers, Baker Mayfield, Saints, Alvin Kamara

Falcons

• According to Michael Rothstein of ESPN, Falcons HC Arthur Smith doesn’t expect TE Kyle Pitts‘ hamstring injury to keep him out long-term.
• Smith noted that Pitts was more sore than usual after their win over the Browns and help him out to prevent the issue from getting any worse.

Panthers

Panthers QB Baker Mayfield took the blame for the team’s 1-3 start to the season.

“I pride myself on being a guy that elevates the guys around him and being able to lead at an extremely high level,” Mayfield said, via ESPN. “And obviously, that has not happened yet. So I’m working really hard on that. And it starts with me just doing my job the very best I can and going from there. Yeah, I take a lot of blame for that and I consistently will.”

Mayfield explained that he’s been in this position before. After walking on at Texas Tech and ending up a Heisman trophy winner at Oklahoma, he’s used to playing with his back against the wall.

“I’ve been here before,” Mayfield said, “I’m pretty comfortable in this position. So I have experience at being able to bounce back, being able to handle things the right way and to lead. For me, we’ll be just fine.”

Panthers HC Matt Rhule has full confidence in Mayfield’s ability to turn it around.

“He’s elitely resilient,” Rhule said. “You don’t go from unrecruited out of college to Heisman Trophy to first pick of the draft without having tremendous self-confidence. Baker, he’s been through a lot already as a player. I have no concerns about his resilience.”

Saints

Saints RB Alvin Kamara said he feels good after being rested last week and expects to play this week. Kamara explained that he didn’t want to go out on the field less than 100% and hurt his team.

“The main thing for me is just being able to help the team any way I can,” Kamara said, via ESPN. “Physically, if there’s a time where I feel like I can’t do that, then I can’t be out there. The last thing I want to do is negatively impact the game. Just being all the way healthy and available on Sunday, that’s my biggest thing. So that’s why, obviously last week was kind of up in the air, didn’t go. This week I’m feeling great, healthy, ready to roll. So I’m going to be out there.”

Kamara explained that the injury is complicated due to the fact that there are not many ways to accelerate the healing. He added that pain management and anything he can do to help the healing process has been his key focus.

“It’s a weird injury,” Kamara said. “There’s nothing really you can do for it. It’s one of those things you’ve got to kind of be easy with and one morning you wake up and it’s feeling terrible, the next morning you wake up and it’s feeling better. I kind of try to stay on the rehab and try to do everything I can. Obviously there’s not too much I can do, but obviously I try to do everything I can to make it feel good and just promote and stimulate the healing.”

Kamara added that he’ll be wearing extra padding on his injured rib in order to stay on the safe side.

“Just protect it, be on the safe side rather than not and end up with another injury,” Kamara said. “We’re going to protect it and we’ll be good.”