Myles Garrett not participating in joint practice with Cowboys

Myles Garrett is drawing some attention this preseason, and not in a good way — he's been held out of joint practices with the Cowboys due to back and lower-body soreness, and separately has missed practice time because of knee swelling that he's pegged at "85 percent." Garrett is a non-factor in standard fantasy scoring since he's a defensive end, so none of this moves the needle for redraft leagues unless you're in an IDP format. For IDP managers, though, this is a cluster worth flagging: multiple soreness issues (back, lower body, knee) surfacing in the same camp window suggests a body that isn't fully clean heading into the season, even as Garrett continues to publicly downplay it by calling himself "good" or "85 percent."

For draft prep, treat this as a mild yellow flag rather than a reason to fade him outright. Garrett's talent and pass-rush volume have made him an elite IDP asset historically, and preseason load management for a star defender is common and not automatically predictive of Week 1 availability. Still, the repetition across multiple joint-practice absences and knee swelling reports — with moderate-to-high confidence from PFT and Yahoo — means you shouldn't assume he's a lock for a full offseason workload. In IDP leagues, keep him as a top-tier target but monitor camp reports closely as the season opener approaches; if the soreness lingers into final preseason weeks, be ready to have a contingency plan at defensive end rather than banking on him fully healthy Week 1. No action needed in standard leagues.