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When the Las Vegas Raiders take the field against the Miami Dolphins in Week 11, they are expected to have tight end Michael Mayer on the field after the former second-round pick was away from the team for an extended period of time.
Mayer played in the Raiders' first three games of the 2024 season but left the team in Week 4 due to a personal matter. Mayer hasn't appeared in a game since, but the Notre Dame product returned to the team during the bye week and was able to practice in full three times during the week.
While he did draw a questionable tag, Mayer is expected to suit up after he was activated off the non-football illness list on Saturday. Here's what we know about Mayer's absence from the team as he prepares to return to the field.
Michael Mayer's absence explained
There was some speculation that Mayer's absence had to do with his frustration over a diminished role after the addition of Brock Bowers, but that was not the case.
According to Your Boy Q on the Locked On Raiders Podcast, Mayer's family reached out to the Raiders in the wake of his absence to let the team know the personal issue was "a situation that has occurred in his life before."
Mayer touched on his absence briefly during the week, but didn't go into specifics. He did, however, have a very important message to share and made it clear he's willing and able to do whatever the team asks.
"The No. 1 important rule is that football's not bigger than life. It isn't, and it never has been," Mayer said, according to Levi Edwards of Raiders.com. "I just needed to figure some things out. That's what I did, and I'm on my feet again. I feel great. I'm sleeping well. I'm doing all the things that I need to be doing to set myself up for success and help the team. Whatever they ask me to do these next eight, nine, 10 weeks, 11 weeks – [I'll] do it for 'em."
"It was good to see big Mike back," head coach Antonio Pierce said, per Vegas Sports Today. "He looked good, had a little tan, so I don't know where he was at but he was hanging out somewhere good. But he looked good, he was in shape, he stayed out here this entire bye week, working out and getting himself back into football shape."
Is Michael Mayer playing this week?
There was some doubts about whether Mayer would be able to play this week after such a long absence, but Pierce hinted Mayer had enough time to ramp up after returning during the bye week and getting in a full week of practice this week.
"Good thing we had a bye week," Pierce added with a smile. "That's a good ramp-up period (for Mayer)."
The last hurdle for Mayer was to be activated off the NFI list, which happened on Saturday. That clears the way for him to return, although he remains questionable on the team's injury report, so it isn't a 100% guarantee yet. We'll know for sure when inactives are released prior to kickoff.
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