While Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season was historic in nature, Week 2 was damaging. The biggest takeaway from the second slate of games was the numerous injuries around the league, with them afflicting some of the biggest names in the sport.
Just about every team and every position was affected. After many players saw their first action in Week 1, the body simply wasn’t able to respond in seven days’ time in Week 2. As a result, many of those injuries will miss Week 3, at a minimum.
Here are the most notable injuries from this past Sunday.
QB: Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels
These two will forever be linked, as not only did they win back-to-back Heismans, but they were also back-to-back picks at the top of the 2024 NFL Draft. Williams suffered a hamstring injury while scrambling in Chicago’s loss to Minnesota, which forced him to return to the locker room via a cart. Many feared the worst, but news on Monday doesn’t paint as grim a picture. Instead of being out months, Williams’s injury is labeled week-to-week, and he even has an outside shot of suiting up in Week 3 on Monday Night Football.
For Daniels, the outlook is as gloomy as the injury was unsightly to see. When attempting to break his fall on a broken play in Washington’s loss to Dallas, Daniels’s elbow bent in a way it isn’t supposed to bend. He’s been diagnosed with a dislocation of his left elbow for the second time in less than a year. Daniels had the same exact injury in Week 9 of last season, which sidelined him for a month, and the Commanders would be ecstatic if Daniels’s timeline is the same this year as in 2025.
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WR: Jayden Reed, Alec Pierce
Perhaps the most serious injury occurred in the Packers’ win over the Jets, when Green Bay receiver Jayden Reed lay motionless on the field after taking a hit. He was stretchered off, and the good news is that his coach noted that he had movement in his extremities but spent the night in a hospital.
Colts wideout, Alec Pierce, was visibly frustrated after leaving Sunday night’s loss to the Chiefs, and understandably so. Pierce had offseason surgery on his left ankle/heel due to lingering injuries, and it just so happened that he aggravated that area on Sunday. It took nearly six months for Pierce to resume practicing after his surgery, so if it’s the same injury and requires the same treatment, then his season would be over.
TE: Dallas Goedert, Charlie Kolar, David Njoku
Goedert suffered a sprained MCL in Philly’s win over the Titans and will miss a few weeks. That further decimates the Eagles’ tight end room, considering that Eli Stowers and Grant Calcaterra are already on injured reserve. As a result, the franchise is reaching into its past and bringing back a legend in Zach Ertz. He spent last year with the Commanders but was a free agent after suffering his own injury—a torn ACL—at the end of last year.
The Chargers suffered more than a defeat on Sunday versus the Raiders, as they also took a pair of losses to the tight end position. Starter Charlie Kolar suffered a forearm injury and was placed on IR on Monday, as was veteran offseason addition David Njoku. The former Cleveland Brown has a fibula ailment, and the 0–2 Chargers will undoubtedly work out street free agents this week to backfill the position.
DB: Cobie Durant, P.J. Locke, Will Johnson, Avonte Maddox
The Dallas Cowboys got the win over the rival Washington Commanders, but they also took two losses in their defensive backfield. Starting cornerback Cobie Durant was lost with a hamstring injury, while safety P.J. Locke was knocked out with a foot injury. Both players are expected to miss a few weeks, meaning a couple of practice squad DBs should get called up and make the Week 3 trip to Brazil as the Cowboys face the Ravens in Rio de Janeiro.
Cardinals cornerback Will Johnson may have seen his second NFL season end just after his second game. The former Notre Dame star got hurt in the fourth quarter of the team’s defeat to Seattle and left the contest with a neck injury. While the team doesn’t believe he will need surgery, the neck is an area to be overly cautious with, as the Cardinals fear Johnson will miss the rest of the season. He will undergo further testing to determine the severity of the injury.
Unlike everyone else on this list, Maddox didn’t suffer his injury on Sunday. But it did occur in Week 2, as he was banged up in Detroit’s TNF defeat to Buffalo. The 30-year-old played 27 snaps before exiting after hurting his foot, and additional testing revealed the worst. Maddox will undergo season-ending surgery, as the injuries, which have been a recurring theme for the Lions over the last few years, are still afflicting the franchise this season.