Dallas Goedert Camp Update — August 31: Calcaterra Lands on Injured Reserve
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Grant Calcaterra was placed on injured reserve with the back injury and must miss at least the first four games, while Stone Smartt was released and Cameron Latu was claimed by New England. Dallas Goedert made the fifty-three-man roster atop a tight end room that turned over almost completely behind him.
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The tight end room behind Dallas Goedert emptied out at the cutdown. Grant Calcaterra — the backup whose back injury had already concentrated first-team work on Goedert — was placed on injured reserve and must miss at least the first four games, per Olivia Reiner at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Stone Smartt, who caught five passes in the Patriots preseason game, was released, per Jeff Kerr at Sports Illustrated, and Cameron Latu was waived and claimed by New England, per Kerr. What's left on the initial 53-man roster is Goedert +3 names: Johnny Mundt, rookie Eli Stowers and E.J. Jenkins, per Dave Zangaro at NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Goedert's own week was quiet by design. No starters played Friday's 30 to 13 finale loss to Cincinnati, per Reiner and Jeff McLane at the Inquirer, so the summer ends with zero Goedert game usage, and the last camp practice write-up doesn't mention him. That settles what we said we'd check, mostly by the conditions never triggering: he couldn't draw preseason targets in a game the starters sat, and the question of whether the red-zone-first-read pattern survives DeVonta Smith's return went untested, because Smith reached only seven-on-seven work by the final practice, per Jimmy Kempski at PhillyVoice, and no source in the window reports a red-zone practice rep for anyone. We'd rather tell you it's untested than infer an answer.
For anyone new to this thread: the June math said last season's 11 touchdowns, after years of never topping five, were due to settle, with the steady five-and-a-half targets a game the durable part — and the upward caveat was A.J. Brown's vacated share flowing inside. Two August weeks of red-zone practice looks were that caveat on film, and this week hardened the opportunity side of it: the backup at the position is now off the roster for at least the first four games, on the reporting alone, no depth-chart claim of ours required. Still practice-grade until the games count. We'll return to it when they do.
_Data via nflverse._
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