Thursday featured a trio of preseason games as we get closer to the start of the NFL season. The Ravens and Dolphins played, with Jay Cutler making his Miami debut with a 3-of-6 performance for 24 yards.
6 things you missed from Thursday night’s NFL preseason action
Chris Long showed solidarity with Malcolm Jenkins, and the Jaguars need a quarterback.
The Bills and Eagles also faced off less than a week after being involved in a trade that sent Jordan Matthews to Buffalo. And the Monday Night Football game (on a Thursday, at that!) was between the Buccaneers and the Jaguars.
It’s the preseason, but here are the most important things you may have missed from the action.
Malcolm Jenkins gets support from Chris Long
Malcolm Jenkins went on with his now-normal national anthem protest on Thursday night. However, he was joined in solidarity by teammate Chris Long, who played his college football at the University of Virginia, which is in Charlottesville.
Shady’s already loose
If LeSean McCoy gets you into space, he’s going to embarrass you just like this:
Shady fought off some injuries last season, but if he’s able to remain healthy, you can expect to see plenty of this during the 2017 season.
Don’t trade a guy who will intercept your QB five days later
Remember how Matthews was traded from the Eagles to the Bills last week? Well the other player involved in that deal, Ronald Darby, picked off his former quarterback less than a week later:
That’s how revenge is done, folks.
Blake Bortles is still drawing boo birds
Bortles is entering his fourth NFL season. Things haven’t gone so well for him in the previous three years, and fans have grown impatient as he has yet to show any signs of life in the preseason.
Against the Bucs, he went 8-of-13 with just 65 yards and was met with boos by the Jacksonville crowd. Our Adam Stites wrote prior to the game about how the time is now for the Jaguars to find another quarterback.
“If you get your hands on it, you gotta catch it.”
Chad Henne came in to relieve Bortles and placed a couple of nice passes into the mitts of Jaguars receivers.
They still couldn’t come down with them:
The Jaguars have a talented roster, but the forever-discussed quarterback position is still clearly a question.
One Jaguars fan had an idea.
Tampa Bay still might need a kicker
Roberto Aguayo was drafted by the Buccaneers in the second round of the 2016 NFL draft. His rookie season was a bust, and his struggles continued into the 2017 preseason. It led to the Buccaneers cutting him.
On Thursday his replacement, Nick Folk, missed two kicks of his own. While this might seem surprising or bad luck for the Bucs, head coach Dirk Koetter anticipated it.
“Whatever they ate for breakfast today? Off the menu,” Koetter said a week ago via JoeBucsFan.com. “Neither one of them was very good today. … You’re a kicker in the NFL; inside 50 yards you got to make your kicks. I’m not being a hard ass or anything. That’s just what it is.”
The kicking battle in Tampa was going to be the biggest preseason duel for the team, and it turns out neither may be on the roster come Week 1.
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