Dart’s potential season-ending surgery + Daniels, Williams injury fallout

Patrick Daugherty (0:21)

Hello, everybody, welcome to the Rotoworld Football Show. It's Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026 I'm Patrick Daugherty, joined by Denny Carter. We are unfortunately joined by our first injury apocalypse of the 2026 season. We get several of these every year, Denny. We're hoping we wouldn't get one so early, but we have that included Jaxson Dart getting injured on Monday night football against the Rams. We'll break that down. We'll break down everything that happened in a Newsy game, even if it was a boring game, Denny. Then we'll tackle some other news, Jaden Daniels' injury in the fallout, Caleb Williams' injury in the fallout, Alec Pearce's injury. You can sense the theme here. So on and so forth. Then we'll preview the Falcons at the Packers on Thursday evening, which will include Michael Penix's debut in 2026

All that and more just after this.

Before we get to any of that, Denny, we have actual breaking news.

Denny Carter (1:11)

A huge, huge break.

Patrick Daugherty (1:12)

A sad development. That's very sad development that you've brought shame on your family.

Your kid has lost all faith in you. Shattering Sunday development. Just take our audience through it. What happened?

Denny Carter (1:26)

Yeah. Look, my family would like to be left alone at this time.

Here's what happened. My son's playing in a fantasy league. He's 13

He's into it. Increasingly so. You know how it goes. You have a good week. He had a good week one, so you're into it.

He had a conundrum at tight end this week, and on Sunday evening after the four o'clock games, he said, Dad, should I play Travis Kelsey or should I play Isaiah Likely at tight end? I was torn. I was torn. It wasn't easy for me. None of this has been easy for me or my family. But I said, bench Kelsey. I said, put in Likely. I like that environment better, that game environment, Likely is running from the slide. All this stuff. You know how it goes.

Patrick Daugherty (2:22)

Yeah, I know.

Denny Carter (2:23)

Can I ask you real quick? Did you have Likely ranked above Kelsey?

Patrick Daugherty (2:27)

I did. I was going to tell you, I was going to exonerate you, absolve you. I want your family together for counseling. Denny did nothing wrong. We need to introduce you to a little concept called the process. It's the process. We need to introduce you to another concept called Uncertainty. We could have never guessed Jaxson Dart would get hurt on the first series.

You saw the Rams played and the Giants were easily winning that game.

Denny Carter (2:50)

That's right.

Patrick Daugherty (2:50)

Dart didn't get hurt. You did nothing wrong, actually. Your son should, I think, think more of you now.

Denny Carter (2:56)

Right. And this is what I said.

But he didn't seem to agree. And what made it worse was that we were watching the Chiefs game like intently on Sunday on Sunday football on NBC because we were supposed to. And and so Kelsey's, you know, going crazy every every five minutes. It's like, and there's Kelsey wide open.

Patrick Daugherty (3:15)

Many were calling it his best game in years.

Denny Carter (3:18)

I mean, it's his best game since COVID.

Patrick Daugherty (3:20)

Like it's a bit of an exact.

Denny Carter (3:22)

Yeah, maybe a little. But, you know, and the excitement that the Chiefs fans are going crazy. Taylor Swift's jumping around. And that made it worse. Taylor, if you're listening, I mean, you actually made it way worse for me.

Patrick Daugherty (3:33)

Well, I'll say what really made it worse is the process, uncertainty, whatever. It does pale a little in comparison to you told him to bench probably now the most famous player in the history of his position.

Denny Carter (3:44)

Right.

Patrick Daugherty (3:45)

Not saying he's the best tight end in the history of the NFL. He's now the most famous culturally.

Denny Carter (3:49)

Yeah.

Patrick Daugherty (3:49)

And daddy said, put him on your bench.

Denny Carter (3:51)

Yeah.

Patrick Daugherty (3:51)

We don't care about any of that around here. We only care about the process and PPR points.

Denny Carter (3:55)

And weekly. Yeah. And weekly prospects. And so this is like being a carpenter, like, like, and your son says, you know, dad, can you build me a chair? Can you build me a desk for my room? And you build it. And then it immediately collapses.

And he says, well, I thought this is what you did for a living. Oh, no.

Patrick Daugherty (4:15)

Did he really hit you with that?

Denny Carter (4:17)