49ers

With Giants QB Jaxson Dart suffering a season-ending injury in Week 2, 49ers backup QB Mac Jones has again been mentioned in the chatter as someone New York could consider targeting for the rest of the season. San Francisco GM John Lynch wasn’t having any trade rumors about Jones, and he was clear about how much they value him in case he has to fill in for Brock Purdy.

“I’m going to leave that alone,” Lynch said, via David Bonilla of 49ersWebzone.com. “What I will tell you is I think a lot of people see all of that and say, ‘Okay, there’s opportunity.’ It also tells you we’re very fortunate to have a guy like Brock, franchise quarterback. But then to have a guy like Mac, in the event, there’s no more important position in football. They’re all important, but I think we know, as your quarterback goes, so goes your team.”

“And so, I think it’s a really special situation to have Brock [Purdy] here, to have Mac here, and then to have a guy we’re really excited about with Kurtis Rourke. And I think back to Bill Walsh, and maybe he was onto something when he had Joe Montana, but he also brought Steve Young in here, and had Steve Bono behind them. So, it’s a good position to be in a position of strength at, and it provides opportunities in a number of ways. The most important way being you’re well insulated in the event something were ever to happen.”

Cardinals

Cardinals WR Marvin Harrison Jr. hasn’t been able to get going through two games, grabbing just one catch for 33 yards on four targets. Harrison opened up on the lack of production, citing the complications in what has to go right on a play-to-play basis for him to produce given his route tree. 

“It’s definitely a combination of a lot of things,” Harrison said, via ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss. “For my route tree getting down the field, you need a lot of things to go right. You need the right coverage, you need protection to hold up, you need me to run a great route, you need obviously Jacoby to make the right pass and make the right read. So, I feel like it’s never one person’s fault for anybody’s success or lack thereof, really.”

“So, I think it’s always a combination of a bunch of things and whether that’s a lack of success or success in general.”

Harrison also thinks facing a strong Seahawks defense in Week 2 only made it harder for the entire offense. 

“Pretty much that simple. Seattle’s a really good defense and you don’t want to give a lot of teams, especially a rival team, a lot of credit. But when you just look across the league, they’re far beyond above everybody else, especially on the defensive side of the football. So, things like that happen.”

Regarding the outside noise about his play, Harrison admitted he sees all the criticism. He doesn’t have an issue with people expressing their opinion and will focus on blocking out the comments. 

“You see everything,” Harrison said. “I’m not going to sit here and say I don’t see nothing or you get told to, ‘hey, block out the noise and not pay attention to it.’ Yeah, that’s part of it. You can still see some of the stuff, block it out.”

“I see everything and everybody’s entitled to their own opinions, and you get platforms to kind of speak your mind and that’s OK with me. So, I’m going to continue worry about my team and my process and helping the team win the best we can.”

Rams

Rams TE Terrance Ferguson had two drops in their Week 2 win over the Giants, but recovered with the final touchdown of the game in their 28-6 victory. Los Angeles HC Sean McVay shared that he encouraged Ferguson to turn things around during the game and was glad to see his response.  

“I was encouraging. I was more coaching him up on some of those bang-bang types of plays,” McVay said, via RamsWire. “‘Body it and prevent him from playing through you as opposed to using your hands.’ There are some situations you actually want to body it where guys are in a position to be able to play aggressively through your hands and it’s tough. But he’s a stud. I’m not responsible for anything I say during games. I black out during games. But I was encouraging him and then I got a ton of confidence.”

McVay added that he has “a lot of belief” in Ferguson. 

“I thought that was a good play by [Tyler] Nubin. He did a nice job. It was a good, competitive throw by Matthew there in a tight man coverage. What I like about games is there are going to be moments where you learn the most when you see like, ‘Alright, what’s the next right thing after a play that doesn’t go down the way that we want?’ We obviously want to stack good plays as consistently as possible, but I have a lot of belief in Terrence Ferguson. Hopefully he feels that. I know his teammates do as well. I thought he made a great catch when we ended up coming back to him and some other opportunities where he’s just going to keep getting better and better.”

Regarding Ferguson’s dropped pass in the third quarter, McVay said he wants to keep a “solution-oriented” approach when things go wrong. 

“But that was one of those that you want to stay on the field in a third-down situation,” McVay said. “I want our players to feel like I’m in it with them and then you’re providing feedback that’s solution-oriented. Not just, ‘Oh, catch the ball,’ or something like that. It’s more along the lines of how you can help in terms of what we’re trying to hunt up.”