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Carolina Panthers QB Sam Darnold is expected to miss 4-6 weeks after suffering a high ankle sprain in Friday night’s preseason game against the Buffalo Bills, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Sam Darnold is expected to be out 4-6 weeks, sources say. He’ll get a second opinion to be sure. Considering what it looked like, not a bad outcome. https://t.co/t11s5kbEl7
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 27, 2022
The Panthers had already named Baker Mayfield the starting QB heading into the 2022 regular season. All this means is Darnold won’t serve as backup and that job will go to P.J. Walker, who played in five games last season. Walker has very limited upside, so if Mayfield were to also go down, that could derail Carolina’s season pretty quickly.
Chances are you weren’t drafting Darnold in fantasy football. What are we saying, there’s no way you were drafting him. So really this doesn’t impact much in terms of fantasy and even the betting markets. Darnold also should be back around Week 4 or 5 depending on his recovery.