Is Brock Bowers playing on Monday night? Injury outlook for star fantasy TE in Week 2

Billy Heyen

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Is Brock Bowers playing on Monday night? Injury outlook for star fantasy TE in Week 2 image

Brock Bowers might already be the best tight end in the NFL.

With fantasy football implications as well as a major impact for the Las Vegas Raiders, his Week 2 injury status has drawn a lot of attention.

Bowers hurt his knee late in last week's season-opening win over the Patriots, and he's been up in the air since then as far as his chances of playing on Monday Night Football against the Los Angeles Chargers.

But finally, there's some clarity.

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Is Brock Bowers playing on Monday night?

The expectation is that Brock Bowers will be active and playing Monday night when the Raiders take on the Chargers in the final game of Week 2.

Raiders coach Pete Carroll told reporters on Saturday that he expects Bowers to play on Monday.

"He practiced great," Carroll said Saturday. "He did really well today."

Bowers has been wearing a brace over a sleeve on his left leg this week during practice, although he sat out both Thursday and Friday before partaking in Saturday's practice.

The tight end himself was slightly less assured than Carroll, at least in the words he said out loud: "I don't know, it's hard to say. I'm just going to keep working out and see how I feel the rest of the day, tomorrow and the next day. So, we'll see."

For a big divisional game against the 1-0 Chargers, though, it seems like Bowers would want to be out there.

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Brock Bowers fantasy injury update

As written above, Bowers seems good to go for Monday, at least based on his head coach's comments.

If Bowers is inactive, though, there's really only one option for a last-minute fantasy replacement on Monday night.

That'd be Michael Mayer, the Raiders' No. 2 tight end. He's talented enough to be a legitimate fill-in, and if you're worried about whether Bowers plays, you can pick Mayer up now as insurance.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle