Posted by Ryan Wilson

Raiders running back Darren McFadden suffered a "little fracture" of an orbital bone during practice Wednesday and will be sidelined for two weeks, according to CBSSport.com's Rapid Reporter Eric Gilmore.

McFadden apparently suffered the injury after taking a helmet to the cheek on what the San Francisco Chronicle referred to as "a great block of Quentin Groves."

Head coach Hue Jackson called the injury "interesting because last year he was out a couple weeks and it was a hamstring" before adding that "he'll be fine."

We're not sure if Jackson is intrigued by the coincidence or because McFadden's injuries seem to come in two-week increments. Either way, he's an integral part of an offense that will now be without tight end Zach Miller, who signed with the Seahawks earlier this week. Luckily, McFadden should be back in plenty of time for the regular season.

A year ago, the 2008 first-round pick accounted for 29 percent of all the Raiders' offensive yards (he rushed for 1,157 and had another 507 yards receiving).And according to Football Outsiders, McFadden ranked 14th in total value among all NFL running backs, ahead of LaDainian Tomlinson, Michael Turner, Joseph Addai and Matt Forte.

The Raiders have added offensive linemen Stephon Heyer, Seth Wand, and Justin Smiley in free agency (they also re-signed center Samson Satele), but the loss of Miller to the Seahawks -- and to a lesser degree, Robert Gallery -- not to mention the huge deal Oakland gave Kamerion Wimbley, lands them firmly in our Eye on Football Free Agency Losers pile.

That said, whatever the state of the offensive line, the Raiders' offensive philosophy will likely start with the running game and McFadden. For now, though, Oakland is thin at the position; rookie Taiwan Jones and Michael Bennett are nursing injuries, and Michael Bush, who rushed for 655 yards in 2010, remains unsigned. The Chronicle's Vittorio Tafur details Bush's absence.

"My understanding with Bush is that the restricted free agent has not signed his first- and third-round tender and doesn't technically have to be back until Aug. 19. The Raiders would send him a letter on the 15th if he is not here and tell him that he has until the 19th to report or else face going on the 'exempt list.' That would result in a three-game suspension."

Jackson, when asked about Bush, said "Well, Michael's going to be here at some point, I truly believe that. Obviously we'd love to have him here today. He wasn't. I think that's going to get resolved here soon."

Depending on how this plays out, McFadden could be back on the field before Bush signs his tender.

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Posted by Josh Katzowitz

• NFL.com has a preview of the owner’s meetings that begin Tuesday in Chicago. Still plenty of obstacles to get a deal done.

• Eagles coach Andy Reid showed up at a Kenny Chesney concert and then put on Chesney’s cowboy hat. Apparently, the crowd loved it.

• An interesting story on Raiders rookie RB Taiwan Jones and how he has overcome his battles with dyslexia.

• Did you know the late Clarence Clemons, sax man for the E Street Band who died last week, once had NFL aspirations? Only a bad car accident when he was a senior in college wrecked those dreams.

• It seems like Patriots RB Kevin Faulk will have quite an uphill battle to keep his job.

• Outgoing Jacksonville mayor John Peyton played a big role in keeping the Jaguars on the right track these past couple years when things did not look good for the franchise.

• Former Seahawks T Brandon Frye was arrested last weekend on suspicion of DUI in Conway, S.C.

• Former NFL player Eric Naposki is set to go on trial for a murder that occurred in 1994. In the late 1980s, Naposki played a couple seasons with the Patriots and the Colts.

For more NFL news, rumors and analysis, follow @cbssportsnfl on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed.

Posted by Andy Benoit

One of the best things about the draft is that from it we can find out what teams really think about their current players. Excluding examples of teams filling obvious needs, here are some of the more revealing draft picks from 2011, with a quick blurb of what the team was really saying by making this pick.

Denver Broncos

2nd round, Rahim Moore, FS, Broncos
We too can read Brian Dawkins’ bio: born October 13, 1973. (Also, we’ll admit, it’s not ideal that we’ll have to relocate intriguing young safety Darcel McBath.)

2nd round, Orlando Franklin, OT, Miami
We’re not fond of either RG Chris Kuper or RT Ryan Harris. Hard to say which of those two, exactly, since every outside observer can see that both of those players are athletic young blockers. So yeah, we probably didn’t (in any which way) need to draft an offensive lineman this early. But you know how it is with new GM’s.

3rd round, Nate Irving, ILB, North Carolina State
We feel the same way about Joe Mays as the Eagles did.

Kansas City Chiefs

2nd round, Rodney Hudson, C, Florida State
Rudy Niswanger doesn’t have the strength to hold up in a phone booth.

3rd round, Justin Houston, OLB, Georgia
He can smoke all the weed he wants, he’s still a much, much better athlete than Andy Studebaker.

5th round, Ricky Stanzi, QB, Iowa
Can you believe we ever toyed with the idea of starting Brodie Croyle!?

Oakland Raiders

2nd round, Stefen Wisniewski, C, Penn State
You might think this was a legacy pick. Yup. (But the good news is we needed a center anyway.)

4th round, Taiwan Jones, RB, Eastern Washington
We’d like to re-sign Michael Bush, but you never know.

San Diego Chargers

2nd round, Jonas Mouton, OLB, Michigan
The hope is that he’ll play well right away and no one will notice that our ’09 first-round pick (Larry English) has absolutely no pass-rushing instinct.

Check back throughout the week for other division’s Draft Truths Revealed. To see all Draft Truths Revealed, click the “Draft Truths” tag.

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Posted by Josh Katzowitz

NEW YORK – Well, the 2011 NFL draft has come and gone. The ESPN and NFL Network sets, the podium and the big-screen TVs can be placed back into storage – along with the 2011 NFL season for now.

That being said, the draft taught us quite a few things about where the organizations are going and, maybe, why they won’t get there. Here are a few observations about what we learned.

1. The Panthers still have no idea about their quarterback situation – and about their direction in general: It feels like Carolina HAD to take Cam Newton with the No. 1 pick, and if the Panthers hadn’t, Newton could have fallen all the way until the middle of the first round. So, Carolina has taken a quarterback in the second round (Jimmy Clausen) and a quarterback in the first round (Newton) in back-to-back years. Are they any better now than they were three days ago? Probably not. Are they actually in a worse spot than they were three days ago? Quite possibly.

2. The Raiders still are too in love with speed: Their third-round pick (CB DeMarcus Van Dyke) is really fast, but other than that, he has many way too many deficiencies. Their fourth-round pick (CB Chimdi Chekwa) is really fast, but he isn’t a great cover guy. Their second fourth-round pick (RB Taiwan Jones) is really fast, but he’s very brittle. It’s a replay of almost every other season. Which likely means Oakland still isn’t going to be much better than average for the foreseeable future.

3. The Patriots might be the new Bengals: OK, that’s perhaps a bit of a stretch, but maybe could you make the case that Bill Belichick’s arrogance of drafting players with off-the-field issues this year compares to Mike Brown’s indifference of drafting players with off-the-field issues. Either way, the Patriots took QB Ryan Mallett (you know his story well by now) in the third round and TE Lee Smith (who left Tennessee for Marshall after he was arrested on a DUI charge). Now, the Patriots will have to make sure they keep those guys in line. The Bengals haven’t always done such a great job of that, but I think Belichick can manage just fine.

4. Apparently, everything is cool with quarterbacks in Arizona, Seattle and Buffalo: Maybe those front offices forgot they’ll enter 2011 with Derek Anderson/Max Hall/John Skelton and Matt Hasselbeck/Charlie Whitehurst, and Ryan Fitzpatrick, respectively. I kid, I kid. The Bills apparently like Fitzpatrick, and the Cardinals almost certainly will go to free agency to find a QB. Maybe, though, those three teams also subscribed to the theory that this year’s quarterback class wasn’t really all that tremendous and decided to try another route to fill the needs of their team.

5.Maybe teams should look more toward the north part of the South for pro prospects: Nine (!) North Carolina players were drafted (that’s right; I double-checked), six Clemson players were taken (and Da’Quan Bowers was only the third picked!), and, hell, even three Appalachian State players were nabbed. Why, then, were the Tigers and the Tar Heels a combined 14-12?

For more NFL news, rumors and analysis, follow @cbssportsnfl on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS Feed .

Posted by Will Brinson



Got a link for the Hot Routes? Hit us up on Twitter (@CBSSportsNFL).

• BREAKING NEWS: Bill Belichick is willing to trade draft picks. Shocking, I know, right? Actually, Belichick was responding to the fact that everyone thinks they'll be trading. They probably will, because that's what they do, but for whatever reason, it's just assumed that everyone can have their pile of picks if they give something else up. Maybe the Pats actually want to nail some early-round picks this time. 

• Our own Mike Freeman hopped on Pro Football Talk Live! (it is Live! and not Live, right?) with Mike Florio to talk about the labor situation, the draft and Jon Gruden. I think Florio's a decent enough looking fella, but I prefer to take him in the ear. Er, wait -- you can listen here and watch here.

• Taiwan Jones is rising up draft boards, and he's visiting a pile of teams.

• John Fox, the new coach of the Denver Broncos, is apparently quite high on Von Miller. As he should be. Smokescreen? WHO KNOWS.

• Why is Andy Dalton -- who's gotten visits from the Colts, the Patriots and the Saints! -- so freaking hot right now? Peter King of Sports Illustrated explains.

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik got an extension from his employer. But that doesn't mean Raheem Morris is guaranteed to get one -- in fact, it appears the team would rather wait until after the 2011 season to try and ink the coach to a long-term deal.

• This isn't NFL-related at all, but a crazed otter is attacking people in Europe and the picture of him chasing "farmer Joe" is too amazing not to link.

• Mike Tanier of Football Outsiders believes that the lockout helps the Packers in their hope to repeat this year.

• Kenny Britt's case has been referred to the prosecutor's office. That means it could be a while before we get any resolution.

• The Jaguars see Ryan Mallett as a "wild card" in the NFL Draft. Just like, um, everyone else.