Red Hot Starter-on-Starter Action
Everything you wanted to know about the first week of the NFL preseason but were afraid to ask and too protective of your free time to watch.
The stars came out to play in Week 1 of the NFL preseason!!!
A hacky intro? Absolutely. But it’s true. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and other franchise quarterbacks made cameos: even Joe Burrow, who is usually stuck in a top-secret subbasement of the Mayo Clinic this time of year.
And the quarterbacks weren’t alone. Maxx Crosby played on Saturday. Old-timey Saints like Alvin Kamara and Cameron Jordan saw some action. Austin Ekeler carried the ball a few times for the Commanders. That’s two 29-year old big-name all-purpose backs exposing themselves to danger in early August, an increase of infinity percent from the traditional zero. Travis Kelce even played a few snaps!
The return of the starters to preseason action marks a shift away from the recent trend of polybagging them until the start of the regular season. Bengals coach Zac Taylor, in particular, appears unwilling to wait until September this year to discover that Burrow needs some WD40 and his offensive line hasn’t quite mastered the snap count.
Not every team has swung back toward playing starters in preseason. Some starters whooped some backups this weekend. Some backups even whooped the opposing starters. It was chaos. Most of it was sloppier than a food truck brisket sandwich, and not nearly as tasty. But it was great to watch some facsimile of live NFL football again.
Here’s a 32-team breakdown of everything that happened in Week 1: no hype, no filler, minimal attention-seeking takes, just exhibition goodness.
Arizona Cardinals
Rookie [WRCardinals] played precisely three snaps before leaving to sue a children’s hospital for drawing his image in strawberry frosting atop a birthday cake, or whatever he does with his free time. His absence left NFL+ viewers to listen to color commentator Ron Wolfley honk and grunt about backups like the PA announcer for a tractor pull at Rutting Hog Motor Speedway for three hours.
(A quick note: The Too Deep Zone legal department advised me to refer to the son of Marvin Harrison Sr. by his Tecmo Super Bowl name of [WRCardinals] until he settles his head-canon NIL lawsuit with the human race.)
The Cardinals backup defense looked solid while holding the Saints starters to just one first down in two series.
Atlanta Falcons
Michael Penix had an encouraging debut. He played five series, going 9-of-16 for 104 yards. He floated a sideline raindrop to Chris Blair. He pump-faked and reset his feet to open up Casey Washington in the middle of the field for 16 yards. He got rid of the ball quickly when necessary and checked down for positive plays once or twice. There were some off-target passes, and he locked onto his receiver and was nearly picked off on his final series, but Penix was impressive overall.
Kirk Cousins reassured fans that he will “be ready to go Week 1” in a sideline interview during the game, sounding 100% confident in his role as the team’s unquestioned starter for the foreseeable future. Well, 87% sure.