Patriots activate Jahlani Tavai, downgrade K’Lavon Chaisson
The New England Patriots activated linebacker Jahlani Tavai off injured reserve on Saturday, and he is expected to make his season debut on Sunday night against the Buffalo Bills.
Tavai has been sidelined with a calf injury sustained in June. He briefly attempted to practice at the outset of training camp before being placed on IR and missing the first four games of the season.
Tavia, 29, was New England’s leading tackler last season with a career-best 115 stops. He racked up 110 in 2023.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel indicated Friday that he was excited about getting Tavia back on the field after the latter was listed as questionable on the injury report.
“Versatility. I think he plays with good technique,” Vrabel said, pointing out Tavia’s strengths. “I think he can play multiple spots. I think he’s an instinctive player. I think he sees the field. I think he understands different concepts. He’s a veteran player who’s played in multiple spots.”
Tavia has 424 tackles, 5.5 sacks, five forced fumbles, four interceptions and two fumble recoveries in 95 NFL games (60 starts) with the Detroit Lions (2019-20) and Patriots.
New England also downgraded linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson (knee) to out on Saturday. Chaisson was listed as questionable on Friday.
Chaisson has nine tackles and 2.5 sacks in four games this season. The 26-year-old is in his first season with the Patriots after playing four seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars (2020-23) and last season with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Austin Reaves Enjoyed Being Back On Court But Knows Lakers Are Work In Progress This Preseason
The NBA season is officially here with the Los Angeles Lakers kicking off preseason action on Friday night against the Phoenix Suns. Austin Reaves was a player who impressed with 20 points on 6-for-11 from the field in 21 minutes in a game with not a lot of positives for L.A.
Obviously, it is preseason and process matters more than results. The Lakers looked like a team with new pieces to integrate and missing two stars in LeBron James and Luka Doncic.
Moving forward, hopefully, the Lakers can establish an identity offensively and defensively. From Reaves’ perspective, he believes the team needs to compete harder and pay attention to the details moving forward in preseason but understands it’s still very early.
“I’ve been a part of [preseason], this is now five times, you understand that it’s not going to be perfect the first go around. The expectation of being perfect, we have a ways to get there and we know that,” Reaves said. “Like JJ (Redick) said, he was looking for three things and those things are not uncontrollables, they are controllables. In spurts, we were doing that and in spurts we weren’t. We just got to compete a little harder, pay a little bit more attention to the details and we’ll be fine.”
This is the first game action players have participated in, so rust is expected to come with that. But, Reaves looked aggressive and got to his spots with ease. With that, he shared he felt good out on the court despite not playing live basketball for awhile.
“Yeah, it felt good,” Reaves said. “Just enjoy playing basketball, Greg (St. Jean) told me twice already that I look quick and that might’ve been the two only times I’ve ever been told that. So, it feels good, but just happy to be out there playing basketball again with these guys.”
Seeing how Reaves has embraced being an on-ball creator is impressive as he looks comfortable orchestrating offense and creating for himself. If the regular season started right now, he showed he would be ready to play.
When the Arkansas native is the lone ball-handler, he has proven time and time again that it is not a daunting challenge for him. Hopefully, James and Doncic can suit up at least once or twice this preseason so Reaves sees what his offensive role will be moving forward, but regardless, he is clearly a player they will be counting on this season.
Austin Reaves thought Anthony Davis was joking with Lakers players
The Luka Doncic trade is immortalized as the craziest blockbuster deal in league history. So much so that when the news broke, seemingly no one believed it was real.
Anthony Davis broke the news to his teammates, but Austin Reaves revealed he thought he was joking at the time given his prankster personality.
