5 real football reasons to watch the 1st week of the 2018 NFL preseason

The 2018 NFL preseason kicked off last Thursday when the Baltimore Ravens fended off the Chicago Bears at the Hall of Fame Game. It was, uh, not especially good football. Neither the Ravens nor Bears gave their regular-season starting quarterbacks a single snap, and as New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick put it: “17-16. It must have been pretty exciting.”

Right.

The good news is this week’s preseason action will supplement last week’s vacuum of quality with a rising tide of quantity. Each of the league’s 32 teams will take the field as the preseason begins in earnest, with 24 showing out on Thursday night. While that will make it difficult to watch reruns of Jersey Shore that evening, there are several promising storylines that threaten to make this preseason watchable or, even better, entertaining.

For better or worse, there are plenty of reasons to tune in Thursday night and throughout the weekend. Here are five that stand out to us:

Buffalo’s current quarterback depth chart looks like this:

1A: Nathan Peterman, the player who threw five interceptions over the course of 14 passes in his first NFL star.t
1B: AJ McCarron, a career backup so underwhelming the Browns once tried to trade for him.
3: Josh Allen, a rookie who completed 56.2 percent of his passes while leading Wyoming to a 16-11 record the past two years.

That’s bad! This offseason, the Bills decided last year’s surprise playoff berth was enough goodwill to satiate their desperate fan base and tore down a nine-win team in favor of starting over from scratch. And while that could pay dividends — getting stuck with the 14th pick each season is a tough way to rebuild — it’s set the stage for a grim 2018.

All three have potential, but it’s unclear if Buffalo has a single long-term solution in its three-headed passing attack. Peterman is a lottery ticket, fifth-round pick project with solid mechanics, but he’s also a University of Pittsburgh QB grad not named Dan Marino, so the deck is stacked against him. Allen has an arm strong enough to throw a football over them mountains, but he lacks control and accuracy. In three career college games against Power 5 competition, he threw for 427 total yards and eight interceptions.

McCarron’s claim to fame is not imploding in a wild card game against the Steelers; he signed for just two years and $10 million during a year where teams leapt at the opportunity to throw money at QBs

One of them will have to start in Week 1, and that journey begins Thursday night against the Panthers. The winner of the QB race gets the opportunity to have Kelvin Benjamin throw him under the bus in two years.

Starters don’t play much in the preseason: It’s too big of an injury risk, and August is mostly for figuring out final rosters anyway. No one has to worry about Tom Brady making the cut, but not even a magical potion from his health guru can protect the 41-year-old from unnecessary hits in games that don’t matter (we think, anyway).

But most players, even the stars, get at least a series during the preseason. That’s especially notable considering how many prominent players are returning from injury after 2017 laid waste to, seemingly, half the league.

Arguably the most triumphant return this entire preseason will be Andrew Luck. Despite Luck’s, and the Colts’, continued insistence that Luck would bounce back from his shoulder injury and would play football again, there was serious doubt about it. It’s been 19 months (or 585 days) since he’s been on the field and the details of his recovery were always vague at best.

For anyone who fell into the “I’ll believe it when I see it” category with Luck, that time has finally arrived Thursday night. Luck will get some playing time — the entire first quarter — against the Seahawks. How will he look (besides unexpectedly jacked)? Will there be any notable difference in his arm strength? Accuracy?

Even if Luck is a little rusty, it’s a huge win to get him back on the football field again, something that even Luck himself wasn’t sure would happen.

Luck might be the headliner, but he’s not the only big name coming back from injury. Deshaun Watson will likely play Thursday night against the Chiefs, 10 months after the Texans quarterback tore his ACL in practice. Ryan Tannehill is also returning from an ACL tear and will see his first action for the Dolphins since December 2016 when they host an intra-state battle against the Bucs.

Vikings running back Dalvin Cook could also be back for this week after — yup, you guessed it — his ACL injury last season.

Even if he doesn’t play Thursday, J.J. Watt is expected to make an appearance this preseason. It’s less likely we see Aaron Rodgers, Odell Beckham Jr., David Johnson, or Carson Wentz until the start of the season, though. That’s OK too: As excited as we are to watch these guys play again, we can wait a little longer if need be.

After the draft, the Browns looked to have one of the top receiver groups in the league. Josh Gordon, Jarvis Landry, Corey Coleman, and Antonio Callaway seemed to be a strong quartet and for once, the Browns looked to have a steady supporting cast.

Well.

That all changed. Gordon is currently away from the team trying to get himself prepared for the rigors of another NFL season, Coleman was recently traded to the Bills for a future seventh-round pick, and Callaway was cited for marijuana possession over the weekend.

There might not be anything to worry about with Gordon, but until he actually reports with the team, the Browns are going to have to find another receiver to potentially get playing time with the first team (hello Dez Bryant?).

Rashard Higgins might be an in-house solution to their suddenly questionable receiver depth, but he has yet to show he’s a starting-caliber receiver in the league. Landry has a starting spot locked in; the Browns need to see some stability at the other receiver slots.

Green Bay’s biggest flaw last season, aside from the fragile nature of Aaron Rodgers’ collarbone, was a depleted secondary that struggled to meet the tone set by safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix. The Packers ranked 23rd in passing yards allowed and 31st in opponent passer rating (102.0) last fall, meaning the average quarterback left a matchup against the green and gold a shade less efficient than 2017 MVP Tom Brady (102.9).

New general manager Brian Gutekunst took steps to rectify that. He shipped starter Damarious Randall (10 interceptions in three seasons with Green Bay) to Cleveland in exchange for a backup quarterback and spent the team’s top two draft picks on cornerbacks Jaire Alexander and Josh Jackson — just one year after former GM Ted Thompson spent the team’s top two draft picks on defensive backs Kevin King and Josh Jones. Gutekunst also brought 11-year veteran Tramon Williams back into the fold to help mentor these young charges.

We’ll get to see what that group can do against Marcus Mariota on Thursday, albeit briefly. Depending on Williams’ role, the Packers could wind up starting up to four first- or second-year players in their defensive backfield in 2018. While there’s a deluge of raw talent there — everyone but Williams was either a first- or second-round draft pick — that will be a volatile group with a large variance between great plays and rookie mistakes. This week’s preseason performances will help set the learning curve for a vital part of Green Bay’s revival.

Quarterback competitions are always the top story of preseason, and the Jets have one of the most interesting battles. The biggest difference, though, is that New York’s depth chart may affect another team.

For now, the Jets enter their preseason opener with their incumbent starter, Josh McCown, at the top of the depth chart ahead of free agent acquisition, Teddy Bridgewater. Then at the bottom is first-round pick Sam Darnold.

“We’re going to let them play,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said at a press conference this week. “And after the fourth preseason (game), sometime that week, I’ll make my decision and go from there.”

The best guess is that the depth chart will finish where it is now, but each has made a strong case to start Week 1:

Maybe it’s just training camp fodder, but the Jets seem to really think they have three starters. That sounds pretty great, but what it really could mean is that New York is in business if another team suddenly needs a starting quarterback before the regular season starts.

If any player gets traded, Bridgewater is the likeliest candidate. But the Jets’ preseason debut against the Falcons is our first chance to see if that trade scenario has legs. If it does, buckle up.