Brock Bowers limited to open Saints week as Hezekiah Masses wins AFC award

Wednesday's first injury report of Saints week listed Brock Bowers as a limited participant with the knee, which is the most encouraging line on the page for a team that has won two games without him. Klint Kubiak kept him day-to-day and stopped short of committing him to Sunday, per Yahoo Sports. Barring a setback, that points toward a season debut in New Orleans.

The rest of the official report is mostly maintenance. Nakobe Dean (shoulder), Folorunso Fatukasi (shoulder), Darien Porter (foot) and Dareke Young (hamstring) were limited. Segun Olubi and JJ Pegues went full. The two who did not practice: safety Treydan Stukes with a concussion, and quarterback Aidan O'Connell, whose absence the team listed as personal and not injury related.

Porter's foot is the thread worth pulling. He sat out Sunday, fifth-round rookie Hezekiah Masses started in his place, and Masses picked off Justin Herbert twice in the 26-14 win. On Wednesday the league named him AFC Defensive Player of the Week. Per the team, he's the seventh Raiders rookie with a two-interception game and the first since 1979, and as Pro Football Talk noted, the first Raiders rookie to take the award since Maxx Crosby in 2019.

Opinion, clearly labeled: the pass rush is the line item carrying this 2-0 start, not the quarterback. Las Vegas has eight sacks, five against Miami and three against the Chargers, and Pro Football Reference has the Raiders first in the NFL in pressure rate at 45.6 percent, as the Las Vegas Sun reported. "That's an elite standard of dominance," Crosby said in that piece. Pressure covers a lot of coverage mistakes, and it's been covering for a secondary starting a fifth-rounder.

Sunday audits that. The 1-1 Saints bring the league's second-ranked passing attack at 305.5 yards a game, and Tyler Shough leads the NFL with 662 passing yards with Chris Olave at 18 catches for 268, per the Raiders' own preview. "We're going to have our work cut out for us on Sunday," Kubiak said. New Orleans has its own list: running back Travis Etienne Jr. and edge rusher Chase Young were limited, cornerback Martin Emerson Jr. did not practice.

Watch Thursday and Friday for Bowers going full, which is the tell on whether he plays, and for Stukes clearing protocol. Kickoff is 1:25 p.m. Pacific in New Orleans.