With the Hall of Fame game behind us, we’re now cruising—cruising, I tell you—into the bulk of the NFL preseason. It’s safe to say that the only person more excited than us (I’m assuming, like me, there’s something wrong with you if you’re reading this) is John Harbaugh, who wore a “1–0” shirt to his press conference Tuesday. He likens his comically long, 23-game preseason winning streak to a no-hitter in baseball, which means we don’t discuss it until it’s over. Or maybe at all.
We are truly living in peak society, my friends.
There are 16 games this weekend, beginning with a Texans-Patriots tilt at 7 p.m. ET Thursday and ending at 4 p.m. ET Sunday with a game between the 49ers and the Raiders. If you consume enough cold medicine before 4 p.m. Sunday you can convince yourself it’s the Jimmy Garoppolo revenge game you never asked for. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
The following is a list of things I’m looking for over these 16 games, and I hope you’ll join me. The Jets-Browns opener was solid, and I’ll start my notebook with a player who blew me away as I was trying to write this column about Zach Wilson deserving a shot to revive his career with the Jets.
Julie Vennitti Botos/Canton Repository/USA TODAY Network (Thompson-Robinson); Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports (Vaughn)
1. Dorian Thompson-Robinson is so much fun to watch
The product of Chip Kelly’s UCLA lit up the fourth quarter of the Hall of Fame game. I think we need to pause for a moment to remember just how difficult it is to play in one of these situations. Receivers are still somewhat unfamiliar. The roster is in a transient state. You are trying to throw open players despite having little-to-no knowledge of their preferences. And yet … that’s what Thompson-Robinson did against the Jets. He was so decisive, despite many assuming he would need a tempo-oriented, Kelly-style offense to get his feet off the ground professionally. Thompson-Robinson, according to Sports Info Solutions, had a catchable pass rating as high as C.J. Stroud in college. He’s a good size for the position (6'1", 205 pounds), and, while we’re taking about a fourth-quarter performance against a defense constituted largely of players who may not be NFL regulars in 2023, there is something to be said about a quick release, scrambling with shoulders squared to the developing play and hitting pass catchers in stride. There are plenty of first-round picks over the past five years who were unable to manage as much in their preseason debuts. This week the Browns will take on the Commanders, and it’s a credit to Thompson-Robinson that he remains the quarterback I’m most interested in taking in on that roster.
2. The Broncos better look sharp Friday against the Cardinals
So much of Sean Payton’s offseason has been about alluding to how poorly the team was run in the year before he arrived. Payton made a display of getting plays in on time during practice this week, which was an obvious nod to the Broncos’ inability to do so throughout the 2022 season with Russell Wilson under center. Blaming the previous regime gets a coach only so far, though. This is a veteran roster, and Payton has positioned himself as the agent of change. If the Broncos look sloppy again, a great deal of revisionist history will start to get dragged through the front door. I’ve always thought Payton’s strategy has a very low ceiling in terms of potential payoff. If there is a Broncos player I’m looking at in particular, though, it’s Marvin Mims. With the team’s rapidly thinning receiving corps, there opens up a spot right away for a receiver who is willing to become a Russell Wilson–type player, namely one who is willing to adjust in space and be available whenever the urge to throw reaches one of the league’s most frequently sacked quarterbacks. Payton said this week that starters will get between 15 and 18 snaps.
3. Deuce Vaughn has the chance to be a preseason Hall of Fame–type player
The 5'5" sixth-round draft pick has earned enough social media clipped video clout this preseason to get on Elon Musk’s payroll. Couple this with something interesting I heard offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer say this week, telling a local radio station that the team wanted to get more heavily into the screen game business, and it’s hard not to wonder whether these two ideas can come together. Vaughn, depending on the type of screen, may be a bit harder to feed in the passing game, especially if a pursuing defensive lineman or linebacker sniffs it out. However, if the Cowboys are able to manufacture touches for Vaughn, who reminds anyone instantly of a Darren Sproles–type change-up back, he’s not getting tackled. Sports Info Solutions had Vaughn as its 12th-rated NCAA back last year in a metric that basically determined total value to the offense per route run. While the actual yardage after the catch wasn’t eye-popping, the regularity with which he seems to be able to squeeze out additional ground is notable. So, too, is his willingness to remain in the pocket and pick up a blitzer. Week 1 can go a long way toward determining whether Vaughn has realistic rotational potential.
4. Forget about C.J. Stroud, I’m watching who will block for him
Obviously we’ll be watching the fleet of rookie quarterbacks this preseason, but the Texans are now down a right tackle and a center, even if they had lined up some high-quality options behind last year’s primary starting center, Scott Quessenberry, before he went down with a torn ACL. So, let’s take the pressure off Stroud for a moment and focus on center Juice Scruggs. New offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, like many of the offensive coaches who have emerged from the Shanahan offensive tree, plans to put his own stamp on the system. But I wonder how integral it remains to have a center willing to act as the nerve system. If Houston can’t emerge from the preseason with some degree of comfort and smoothness in its running game, and thus, a thriving play-action suite, it’s hard to wonder what the early going will look like for Stroud.
5. How physical are the Rams’ wide receivers going to be?
We’re not going to see Cooper Kupp, who sustained a hamstring injury, near a football field for a while. This is obviously bad news for the Rams in the long term if the injury continues to manifest itself throughout the season. But, in the short term, this can be a blessing. Kupp allows the Rams to act like a 12-personnel offense despite being in 11-personnel because of the way he can contribute to the run game. We’re going to see a lot more of Tutu Atwell and (hopefully) camp darling Puka Nacua. I’d care less about how many touchdowns they score and focus more on where they line up before the snap, and how eager they’re going to be to attack linebackers and members of the secondary.
Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports
6. The least interesting preseason quarterback competition in recent memory
I tried not to make this post too quarterback-heavy, or at least focus away from the players who we’ll all have an innate curiosity about. Outside of a few gamblers and delusional fans in Tampa, this checks the box. If I were to ask 100 people on the street right now who is competing for the vacant seat left behind by Tom Brady, I’m assuming less than 5% wouldn’t just assume Brady had unretired again. The Buccaneers released their first depth chart of the preseason and said their first-string quarterback was either Baker Mayfield—OR—Kyle Trask. The “OR,” which I like to say to myself with the gusto of the secret ingredient reveal from Iron Chef, has to be one of the most nonthreatening presentations a club has made through presenting its depth chart. The edge here seems to be to whoever makes fewer bad throws. The vocal criticisms of Mayfield’s penchant for turnovers and for Todd Bowles’s desire to play a ball-control game that allows his defense to close out wins sets the stage for an überconservative boat-steering contest.
7. How will the Falcons’ secondary play?
Yes, we’re all going to watch Bijan Robinson. But there are practical matters to attend to first. Remember when Atlanta traded for corner Jeff Okudah? It was a high-upside move for a highly drafted player (No. 3 in 2020), but it also revealed just how much was riding on a complete turnaround. Okudah is hurt for now, which exposes what has been lying underneath. The Falcons have been in Miami all week facing one of the league’s best receiving corps during joint practices. The Falcons’ secondary, on a practice-by-practice basis, probably has more repetitions against elite and stylistically different athletes than any other position group in football. So, the learning curve may not be as steep. The depth may be there after all. The Falcons and new coordinator Ryan Nielsen come from the Dennis Allen camp, which, of late, has been notably blitz-averse. The Saints blitzed on fewer than 17% of snaps last season, and while I can imagine a world where the league warms up to quarterback pressuring again, the need for a complete secondary is obvious. It’s a lot less fun to have a Porsche of an offense when the defense is giving up scores quickly.
As we wrote this past offseason when Bieniemy left Kansas City to get an unquestioned full-time play-calling role that could finally surge him past the why-can’t-he-land-a-job stage of the hiring process, it’s impossible and unfair to make a binary determination about his ability after this season. That said, when head coach Ron Rivera notes that players have come to him and asked Rivera to speak with Bieniemy about his style, we’re going to keep an eye on how the entire operation looks and feels. Rivera drew a line between Jack Del Rio’s player management style and that of his offensive coordinator, noting that one tends to tailor his style to the player, while the other tends to have a style that demands assimilation. I don’t imagine there will be footballs spiked out of frustration or a completely broken-looking offense in Washington. But I do think the addition of Bieniemy, with or without a proven quarterback in place, was one of the biggest swings a coach took with their staff this offseason. I don’t think the previous few weeks have changed that assumption much.
