If it seems like you saw less game action for starting quarterbacks in the NFL preseason, well, you did.
Teams are putting less priority on preseason snaps for starters, so much so that 10 starting quarterbacks didn’t throw a single pass in their preseason, with another 10 starters throwing 10 passes or fewer over their three games. The average NFL starter attempted just 10.1 passes in the preseason this year, which represents a 30% drop from the average of 14.3 in the 2021 preseason.
“I don’t feel like I need to play him in the last game,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said of holding starter Baker Mayfield out of the preseason, even with a new offensive coordinator in Josh Grizzard. “It’s really practice habits, No. 1. How hard are you practicing? How many game situations have you been in, and all of those type of things. The energy you come in with – are you getting the ball out in 7-on-7, or are you patting it and holding it because you’ve got all day? He played in Pittsburgh (in joint practices with the Steelers) like it was a game on Thursday, especially the two-minute situation. It was all sped up for him and he’s done a bunch of practices like that as well. So I feel like the experience of the quarterback and how he practices has something to do with it. It’s the chemistry with everybody going in sync.”
It isn’t just experienced quarterbacks getting held out this year. Michael Penix Jr., a second-year quarterback who started three games as a rookie, didn’t play a snap for the Falcons, nor did Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders, another second-year player.
Michael Penix’s only action this preseason only consisted of warming up before games. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
As for those who do play, they’re out of games sooner due to the risk of injury. Four years ago, seven starting quarterbacks had more than 25 passes in the preseason, but this year, only two did, and those were on the last two teams with real quarterback competitions, the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints.
There’s a wide disparity in how NFL coaches value preseason game experience, and some of the league’s most established quarterbacks still play more than unproven passers who more legitimately need the work. Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who led the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns last season, played 24 snaps in the preseason, fifth-most among starters. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who’s been to five of the last six Super Bowls and won three of them, ranked in the top 10 with 14 preseason snaps.
“For me, I wanted to get out there,” Mahomes said after playing against the Chicago Bears this weekend. “The preseason is the preseason, [and] we perceive it. You need everyone to remain protected and have your well being and stuff like that, however on the finish of the day, you are a soccer participant [and] you have to play soccer. There’s dangers which might be concerned with that, and so, we on this staff, we need to get on the market and provides possibilities to showcase that what we’re doing is paying off … It was a small step, nevertheless it was a step in the fitting route.”
Patrick Mahomes was one of many busier beginning quarterbacks this preseason. (Picture by Jamie Squire/Getty Pictures)
Whereas groups need to defend their starters, backups can get damage, too. Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Aidan O’Connell sustained a damaged wrist in Las Vegas’ preseason finale, leaving them with out an skilled backup to Geno Smith and maybe working so as to add a veteran lower than two weeks earlier than the season begins.
The stability between getting ready gamers for video games that matter but additionally preserving them to verify they get to Week 1 is an organizational resolution. Atlanta’s Raheem Morris stated he’ll err on the aspect of security, even when it means much less sport work for key gamers with a pivotal divisional sport towards the Bucs looming of their opener.
“Actually, for me, it is about mitigating harm,” Morris stated. “You do not get any mulligans. If we get a big participant that we all know what he is able to doing, to look at him to play towards a really vanilla protection or a really vanilla offense … There isn’t any mulligans, so the issues that I can management, I need to do for us, our neighborhood, our followers, our group, as greatest I can.”
Followers, too, are torn between trusting the judgment of coaches to protect gamers and decreasing the chance of harm, but additionally realizing they’re paying for preseason tickets as a part of a season ticket package deal and are sometimes watching gamers who will not be part of the staff within the common season.
Because the NFL ponders increasing once more from a 17-game schedule to 18 video games, doing so would doubtless coincide with lowering the preseason from three video games to 2, simply because it dropped from 4 to 3 preseason video games when the common season added a seventeenth sport in 2021. That may imply fewer alternatives to play anybody, shifting the significance extra to observe and joint practices.
It is not not like the main modifications which have advanced within the final 20 years to cast off two-a-day practices and restrict the quantity of full-contact practices groups can have, one thing that’s met with preliminary resistance, however ultimately turns into accepted because the norm.
“It is advanced in a pure means, nevertheless it’s additionally advanced in a reactionary type of means,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin stated. “The principles that govern what it’s that we do, how we put our calendars collectively, how we work, the quantity of labor we’re allowed, the time of hours a day that we get with the blokes. All of that has modified over the course of my 19 years right here.
“I simply have a look at the instruments at my disposal when it comes to readying this group, and the rules I’ve to subscribe to in an effort to take action. I do not assume I waste a variety of time evaluating this group’s preparation to 1 15 years in the past, as a result of it is not apples to apples.”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is pushing for an 18-game common season, which might shrink the preseason to 2 video games. (Picture by Perry Knotts/Getty Pictures)
Does the dearth of preseason preparation have quarterbacks taking part in worse within the first month of the season? In principle, defenses would face the identical uphill climb, however the numbers present a extra drastic quarterback enchancment from the beginning of the season to the tip of the season than what they confirmed a decade in the past, when groups had yet another preseason sport to get them prepared for the yr. Final yr, as an example, the league’s collective landing to interception (TD/INT) ratio within the first 4 weeks of the season was 1.81, however that jumped to 2.21 within the closing 4 weeks of the season.
The general passing numbers are a lot improved from a decade in the past for quite a lot of causes. However when you have a look at 2015, the TD/INT ratio within the first 4 video games was 1.73. That quantity within the final 4 video games of the 2015 season was 1.95. The 2024 TD/INT ratio distinction had an enchancment of twenty-two% from begin to end, in comparison with a 13% enchancment in 2015.
Whether or not that worse begin and larger enchancment are a operate of much less preseason work can be tough to show, nevertheless it’s logically a part of it.
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports activities. He beforehand spent a decade protecting the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Instances and The Athletic. You’ll be able to observe him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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