Third-String Quarterbackapalooza

This weekend’s best preseason action takes place on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 PM Eastern. Make your plans accordingly.

The Bears host the Browns at 1:00 PM on Saturday. The Giants host the Vikings at the same time. NFL Network will broadcast Bears-Browns, granting you a chance to rubberneck at Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders. Giants-Vikings will be available in the New York area and on NFL+; it also should be easy to follow on the social network of your choice.

Tuesday’s announcement that Kyler Murray has won the Vikings starting job over J.J. McCarthy takes some of the fun out of Saturday’s game, but there are other reasons to watch the Vikings (we’ll get to them in a bit). Also, parsing McCarthy’s sideline body language could be entertaining, like watching a Tinder date at the table next to you turn into a shipwreck.

The third-stringers in both games should take the field by about 2:30 PM, so you can safely go on with your active lifestyle. Heck, West Coast fans can pretend it’s all just a Saturday morning cartoon. I watched Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as a tyke and turned out 10,000% normal, so it’s probably safe to watch Descuzzball with your cereal.

As for the rest of this week’s preseason action, you could bury your expectations at the bottom of a landfill and the games would still fall below them. Too Deep Zone’s Walkthrough will return on Monday to recap everything in obsessive detail. But here are some thoughts on selected games and teams to help guide your viewing choices, catch you up with news around the league, and (hopefully) provide some chuckles and insights.

(All times Eastern.)

Cardinals at Raiders, Thursday, 8:00 PM

The Hall of Fame game is more like the Senior Bowl than even the typical preseason game, let alone anything that happens in the regular-season. 

Both the Hall of Fame Game and Senior Bowl are exhibitions where college stars try to impress NFL coaches while executing tutorial versions of NFL playbooks. The games themselves are just glorified excuses for the surrounding pageantry and hoopla. (Senior Bowl week includes parades, concerts and other events that draftniks never attend or mention.) Both games are small-city chamber-of-commerce holdovers from an era when pro football was less popular: they’re designed to fill hotels and restaurants in Canton and Mobile for a week, not to stage a competitive and compelling sporting event.

When folks like me report that a college prospect looked great at the Senior Bowl, we mean Senior Bowl week: several days of practices, interviews and opportunities for reporters to drink whiskey with agents/scouts/general managers. It’s rare for any knowledgeable source to base any judgments on the game itself. If a quarterback throws two touchdowns in the actual Senior Bowl, it’s only talked about if it comes at the end of a much-talked-about week. 

The Hall of Fame Game is different in many respects: NFL-branded, nationally televised, all alone on the schedule after several football-free months. Yet it may be more of a nothingburger than the Senior Bowl. It’s not like we also got to scrutinize three days of joint Panthers-Cardinals practices last week or anything.

Carson Beck did not participate in the 2026 Senior Bowl, nor the 2025, 2024 or 1997 events; he was in college an awfully long time. Had he done so, he probably would have looked pretty good, just as he looked in last week’s Hall of Fame Game: 15-of-19 for 188 yards and one touchdown, with a few very sharp throws, against what can charitably be called the Panthers’ 2.5th-string defense.

Beck started 43 college games, including SEC title games and playoff games, as well as a National Championship. He’s an unlikely candidate to fold under the pressure of a glorified family night practice. Beck’s Hall of Fame Game performance was about as impressive and enlightening as his victories over opponents like Tennessee and Virginia Tech.

This is the part of the rant where I claim that fans and usual-suspect media gadflies lost their minds about Beck last week. That’s not really accurate. Based on Barry Shuck’s roundup of media reactions to Beck on SB Nation, most folks who felt compelled to say something made sure to wrap themselves in quippy, winky equivocation. 

Sure, Stephen A. Smith tossed up a complimentary word salad about Beck – you just know Smith is serious when he throws terms like “moxie” around – but most of the other quotes in Shuck’s feature sound self-conscious. Maybe the rookie for the atrocious team who looked good in that dumb game should be the starter, or something? Please don’t hold me to this. I plan to forget I wrote/said/posted it as soon as the bartender brings another lime-a-rita.

Beck could be the best quarterback on the Cardinals roster right now, just as some 25-year old callup for the Los Angeles Angels could be their best five-hole hitter. Jacoby Brissett, you may recall, backed up Sam Howell two years ago and did his best work in 2025 after spotting opponents 35-10 leads. Claiming that Beck could start for the Cardinals is an indictment of the Cardinals more than an endorsement of Beck. It’s a Why Not? argument, which is not the same as a convincing one. 

Beck deserves a chance to go out this week and try to stack strong performances. But it's odd seeing Beck framed as some new, unknown commodity. Beck was on television every Saturday for three autumns. Draft analysts not only watched Beck lots of times, but studied his draftable teammates (Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, various linemen) and the many top SEC/ACC defenders he faced lots of times, over multiple seasons. The draft community, given years of data points, collectively shrugged. The draft consensus can be wrong, but it’s still a more trustworthy source for analysis than 19 passes against randos, as witnessed by folks acting as though Beck sprouted from a seedpod on the sideline an hour before kickoff.

Lions at Bengals, Thursday, 7:00 PM

Zac Taylor announced on Tuesday that Bengals starters, including Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Dexter Lawrence, will play on Thursday night.

You may recall that Taylor, a Mini McVay, used to keep his starters bubble-wrapped for the entire preseason. The Bengals then started the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons 0-2. Taylor acquiesced, and probably overcompensated, in 2025: Burrow started two games and threw three touchdowns in last year’s preseason, staying in the second game after a nasty sack and some other scary hits. The Bengals started the 2025 season 2-0, but Burrow got hurt in the second game.

There’s a sweet spot between recklessly endangering your franchise quarterback and giving your starters so little work that it looks like no one even knows the snap count in the season opener. Given eight or nine more years, Taylor may find that sweet spot.

The Lions have one of the NFL’s least interesting benches. Teddy Bridgewater just retired, and Joshua Dobbs just returned from studying the Astrophage to take over as Jared Goff’s primary backup, so UDFA Luke Altmyer will probably be the Lions quarterback for much of the game. Altmyer’s a scrappy little guy who looked OK during Senior Bowl week; scrappy little guys often look either very good or very bad in the second halves of preseason games. 

The Bengals starters will steamroll the Lions backups for a quarter or so. Think of it as a teaser trailer that spoils all the best scenes in a movie. The Bengals are 6.5-point favorites because of Taylor’s announcement, but my preferred sportsbook is not offering a first-half line. That’s for the best. I feel gross for just having looked for one. 

Broncos at Falcons, Friday, 7 PM

We’re likely to see a lot of Jack Strand, the fourth-string quarterback who took first-team reps for the Falcons while Tua Tagovailoa was hurt, Michael Penix was trying to schedule a doctor’s visit and Cooper Rush was still onboarding with the HR department at the start of training camp.

Strand played for the Dragons of Minnesota State University-Moorhead, leading them to an 8-3 record in 2025 against juggernauts like University of Mary and Bemidji State.

Let’s pause for a moment to reflect upon “University of Mary,” which is located in Bismarck, North Dakota. I was raised ultra-Catholic, but even most non-Catholics are probably aware that Jesus’ mom is rarely referred to simply as “Mary” in ecclesiastical/liturgical/institutional settings. She’s at least “St. Mary,” though churches/colleges/hospitals named in her honor tend to use one of her many honorifics: Notre Dame, Immaculate Heart, Blessed Virgin, Queen of Ecstatic Suffering, Our Lady of Divine Punctiliousness, etc. “University of Mary” sounds like some supercilious Mother Superior ran out of either ideas or room on a sign.

University of Mary’s sports teams are the Marauders, which is not very Marian. Their logo is a stereotypical eyepatch-and-earring pirate. So you hear “mother of eight-pound, six-ounce newborn baby Jesus” but see Scurvy Rumbeard.

The MSU-Moorhead versus University of Mary rivalry is called the Battle for the Paddle. I’m sorry, but you can’t cram pirates, Catholic education and paddles into the same iconography without triggering someone’s deep-seeded insecurities. Luckily, MSU-Moorhead won the game, so the Dragons will be the ones doing the paddling.

Eager to see a little tape of Strand, even if it’s just a highlight montage, I loaded up some footage of the MSU-Moorhead showdown against Northern Michigan, which just raised further questions.

Umm … was that game being played in an indoor swim club or something?

Nope, it was played in Northern Michigan’s Superior Dome, located on the banks of the lake that no one calls Gitchigumi in Marquette, Michigan. Per Wikipedia, the Superior Dome “is a geodesic dome constructed with 781 Douglas fir beams and 108.5 miles (174.6 km) of fir decking and is designed to support snow up to 60 pounds per square foot (2.9 kPa) and withstand 80-mile-per-hour (130 km/h) winds.”

So … a big wooden cut-in-half Epcot dome? That’s freakin cool. But the indoor setting just underscores the fact that Strand’s highlights look like summer rec league footage.

Here’s 35 minutes of Strand footage for you sickos. It’s elite stuff for folks who love small-college backdrops. Watch the very first play for a look at a leafy little neighborhood with some apartments or dormitories behind the far end zone. If you like seeing softball fields, parking lots and the occasional dusting of snow in the background, this is the sizzle reel for you. I didn't notice any dogs playing Frisbee in the background, but I will admit that I did not watch all or even most of it. 

J.K. Dobbins is already hurt for the Broncos. It’s not serious, but give him time; he’s just ramping up. Sean Payton has stated that he’s concerned about the team’s many soft-tissue injuries but is also considering giving some reps to the starters. Payton stopped listening to himself during press conferences before he even left New Orleans. 

Fantasy speculators will definitely want to have a look at fourth-round running back Jonah Coleman, especially with Dobbins already in late-season form. 

“Coleman has spent the last 11 days or so looking like the Broncos’ most complete runner after Dobbins himself,” per Denver Post columnist Sean Keeler. “Willing blocker? Yep. Weapon out of the backfield? That, too. Angry runner inside? Check. Secure with the football? Absolutely. Home-run speed? Sure, although maybe not to the degree of an RJ Harvey, Tyler Badie or Jaleel McLaughlin.”

I liked Coleman as a high-effort grinder at Washington and would love to see him perform well on Friday night and beyond. It feels like I haven’t seen a Broncos running back break a tackle since Clinton Portis left, though I think I saw Dobbins break one once. And then the tackle broke him.

Buccaneers at Jets, Friday, 7:00 PM

Rookie Jets tight end Kenyon Sadiq almost certainly won’t play on Saturday; he’s dealing with a setback from offseason hernia surgery. Fellow first-round pick Omar Cooper, a wide receiver from Indiana, probably will play. Cooper hasn’t generated much buzz; most coverage I was able to dig up of him from Florham Park this offseason has boiled down to: Well, he’s definitely here. 

And then there’s edge rusher David Bailey, the other other first-round pick. “Bailey has at times been unblockable, displaying a combination of speed and power off the edge,” wrote Antwan Staley for the New York Daily News on Monday. “There have been times when the Jets have double-teamed Bailey, but it simply hasn’t mattered.”

Bailey suffered a minor ankle injury last weekend but was reportedly unblockable again in Tuesday’s joint practice with the Buccaneers. I hope we get to see him for a few series on Friday night.

We’ll probably see plenty of Cade Klubnik, the fourth-round pick from Clemson who is provisionally listed as Geno Smith’s primary backup on the Jets preseason depth chart. Klubnik was a dink-and-dunk machine at Clemson who threw 36 touchdowns in 2024, then tailed off with the Clemson program in 2025. Even in his best season, Klubnik wilted against opponents like Georgia and South Carolina. He’s like Diet Carson Beck: experienced enough to look competent in preseason games and sit up straight in the film room, but not a serious prospect. 

Klubnik got positive notice early in camp but was unable to sustain it; he’s apparently had some rough practices lately. Geno, meanwhile, had an ugly practice session against the Bucs on Tuesday. Bringing Geno back to the Jets may have been like finally creating the Torment Nexus. 

Don’t forget to keep tabs on the Jets kicker battle! From Eric Allen at the team website:

Veteran kickers Jason Sanders and Cade York are vying for the placekicking job. They each have had strong days although they were in bounce-back mode following an uneven performance last Thursday.

"I think they've been doing a great job, especially when they first got back in training camp hitting the ground running," said special teams coordinator Chris Banjo. "Little bit of adversity, but I think at this time in training camp that's pretty good. We're excited to see how they respond and coming back on the next opportunity they have and we'll forward to it."

I love how neither Allen nor Banjo can make it through a short paragraph without equivocation. Mom and Dad are very proud of how hard their kickers are trying!

Vikings at Giants, Saturday, 1:00 PM

Show up on Saturday for the residual Vikings quarterback drama. Stay for the late-round draft picks everyone is buzzing about.

Charles Demmings, a fifth-round cornerback out of Stephen F. Austin, has apparently been bringing the noise in Eagan. “Chuck D is a very confident individual,” Brian Flores said, per Alec Lewis of The Athletic. “He’s high energy, great teammate, hard worker. In drills, you see him working his footwork and hand placement, and he tries to apply those things in the group setting.”

Sixth-round running back Demond Claiborne has also been receiving accolades. Starter Aaron Jones called Claiborne “a special back in this league.” The fantasy community took note of the Claiborne buzz: Jones is getting older and needs to be a committee chairman-type, while backup Jordan Mason is rather generic.

And then there’s sixth-round fullback Max Bredeson, who might as well have Fan Favorite stenciled onto the back of his jersey:

For nearly ten years, Northlanders could turn on their television on Sundays and cheer for one of their own. But as Vikings training camp unfolds, so does a changing of the guard.

C.J. Ham was more than just a fullback. He was a team captain, a leader and a fixture of the Vikings culture. His retirement left behind a void.

To fill it, the Vikings handpicked his replacement, spending a fifth-round draft choice on Michigan’s Max Bredeson. Bredeson was a Wolverine team captain and won the LowMan award given to the best fullback in college football.

“It’s awesome that they have that belief in me,” Bredeson said. “To be able to help the team win no matter how that be whatever I can do to help the team. I want to continue what he started.“ – Blake Hornstein, Northern News Now.

Wow! What a blue-collar lunchpail type!

The conversation around all of these Vikings rookies has gotten a little florid: go check out Lewis’ extended preamble about Demmings (or something) as evidence. The Vikings press pool may be suffering a bit of heatstroke and just dying to talk about non-quarterbacks for a while.

Here are some of my draft notes for Claiborne and Demmings:

[Demond] Clairborne ran a 4.37 second forty at the Combine and was a productive rusher for the Demon Deacons for three years. He also weighs 188 pounds, fumbled six times and dropped five passes on 39 targets. Fumble-prone rookie running backs start losing playing time in late July and never get it back.

[Charles] Demmings is a 6-foot-1 defender who held his own against Houston (the only FBS opponent on the Lumberjacks’ schedule in 2025) and smothered receivers from Incarnate Word and something called Sul Ross State, not to mention UTRVG, whatever that stands for. Demmings then handled himself well enough at the Senior Bowl and produced juicy Combine results, including a 4.41 second forty and fine jumping results. There was some buzz about his intangibles coming out of both Mobile and Indy.

I have no idea how to parse tape (scant as it is) of Demmings blanketing receivers from UTFLA. (University of Tantalizing Five Letter Acronyms.) The tools and buzz suggest a useful NFL defender.

My only notes on Bredeson state that he was a blocking specialist at tight end for Michigan. He caught 12 career passes, so I didn’t feel compelled to perform a deep draft dive. Bredeson is probably capable of replacing Ham as a chonk white guy wish-fulfillment avatar and occasional reminder that the fullback is not yet extinct, at least in Minnesota.

Also, Odell Beckham will play in Friday night's game. OBJ, in August, in 2026. Not sure whether to laugh or cry, so I will just gape.

Panthers at Bills, Saturday, 1:00 PM

No, this is not about Haynes King, who pulled a hamstring late in the Hall of Fame Game. It's about forever-injured running back Jonathon Brooks, who is expected to play with the starters on Saturday.

Brooks rushed for 1,139 yards and 10 touchdowns for Texas in 2023 after two years on the bench behind Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson. He tore an ACL in November of the 2023 season, then tore it again nine attempts into the 2024 season, missing all of last year.

Fantasy speculators are keeping an eye on Brooks, who is slated to replace Rico Dowdle as the Panthers backup running back who frequently upstages Chuba Hubbard. Much coverage of Brooks strikes a tone of: The ultra-dominant Jonathon Brooks we all remember so well is BACK, even though the only folks who remember Brooks at all by now are Longhorns fans, hardcore draftniks and fantasy speculators.

I wish only the best for Brooks. But he's never had a fully healthy and productive season at the college or pro level. Getting through Saturday will be an encouraging start.

Rams at Chiefs, Saturday, 4:00 PM

NFL Network either loves us or hates us. NFLN is pulling that silly bait-and-switch that major broadcast networks used to do in decades past: Come watch Patrick Mahomes, Matthew Stafford and other superstars from perennial contenders sip Gatorade on the sideline, you rubes.

The Jaguars host the Saints at 4:00 PM on Saturday, and I would much rather gauge Tyler Shough’s development for a few series while watching James Gladstone try to build a running back out of old lawnmower parts. But perhaps NFLN is saving me from myself. I can go to the gym and the pool instead of watching this game, then shower up and head to the tavern for Eagles-Ravens.

Neither Myles Garrett nor Puka Nacua was going to come within 50 feet of the field on Saturday under any circumstances – Sean McVay himself is gonna just not show up for a preseason game someday – but both were held out of joint practices with the Cowboys this week due to groin soreness. 

There’s lots of vague “soreness” going around the NFL right now. Extreme humidity is a likely culprit, but extreme humidity is nothing new. I’m worried that NFL players are now trying to hydrate by drinking beef tallow or something. Nacua, in particular, is callow enough to fall under the sway of some Twitch streamer who convinces him that hydration will make him effeminate. 

McVay said that Ty Simpson, who is currently QB3 behind Stafford and Stetson Bennett, will play on Saturday. Bennett may not, which means Simpson could start. There was scuttlebutt during the summer doldrums that McVay might embargo his first-round pick from preseason action, lest we poke too much fun at the Rams’ quarterback of the far-flung future, or (much more importantly) at McVay and Les Snead for drafting him. But no, McVay is made of sterner stuff than that, and he’ll guzzle a quarter of rendered lard on a 95-degree day to prove it. No one cares that the Rams wasted a draft pick when future Hall of Famers are practically parachuting into team headquarters.

We’ll probably see just enough of Chiefs backup Justin Fields to justify some scorching takes. Garrett Nussmeier will then try to generate a Carson Beck-like bump in the polls. Offseason sensation Cyrus Allen is back from a minor shin injury, so we should have a look at him. First-round cornerback Mansoor Delane (shoulder) has been limited to 7-on-7’s and almost certainly won’t play on Saturday. 

Eagles at Ravens, Saturday, 7 PM

Ja’Kobi Lane, a third-round rookie receiver from USC, has been the undisputed star of Ravens training camp.

Matt Lombardo profiled Lane after visiting Ravens camp last week, noting that both Jesse Minter and Lamar Jackson want to get Lane more involved as a deep threat because of his ability to make contested catches. “Lamar and I talked about this early on, just keep throwing him the ball,” Minter said. “Let’s figure it out. Throw him the ball in traffic. Throw him the ball when he’s covered, just to see. Every time he makes a play, that trust grows.”

Zay Flowers, Jackson’s go-to receiver, just signed a hefty new contract, then suffered a quad contusion that will keep him out of camp for a while. Rashod Bateman is the Ravens’ WR2, which means they don’t really have one, opening the door for Lane.

Oh, Bateman enjoyed a little news bump last week. It sounds like he was made available to the media at a podium, as was receivers coach Keary Colbert, so that day became Rashod Bateman Redemption Day for the Ravens’ small press pool.

Bateman will apparently move all around the formation this year. Isn’t that exciting! He’ll be able to not get open from multiple positions! Bateman also said that new offensive coordinator Declan Doyle believes in him, which intimates that past offensive coordinators did not, which is borne out by the statistical evidence. 

Bateman has been a Crossroads Receiver for so long that he’s practically a bus stop. Rashod Bateman Redemption Day is becoming an annual Baltimore tradition, like the Preakness or Running With the Crabs. I would be much more likely to believe in a Bateman breakout if reporters writing about him didn’t sound so much like Milhouse signing Bart Simpson’s cast when he’d rather go swimming. We sure are excited about Rash’Kobi BateLane …

A UDFA named Joe Fagnano from Connecticut may be the one throwing to Lane, Elijah Sarratt and any other recognizable Ravens receivers who are still on the field by halftime. Every photo I see of Fagnano suggests that the Ravens scoured the nation searching for a Young Joe Flacco lookalike. This lad looks like he sat in my Algebra class, boxed up a Caccia’s tomato pie for me last week and may have sold me a nickel bag in 1985. He’s so Jersey he makes Tommy DeVito look like Opie Taylor. He’s from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which is close enough.

I bathe in daily Eagles speculation here in East Philly, of course, so I am looking forward to seeing all of the young skill position players competing for roles. I will also enjoy watching lefty scrambler Cole Payton do silly fourth-quarter stuff while friend-of-the-Zone Ross Tucker repeats “Taysom Hill” until the words lose all meaning. But I don’t believe we’ll see enough of Sean Mannion’s new offense in August to even do any Tarot readings.

The Seahawks host the Cowboys on Saturday night on NFLN. It will probably be interesting in its own way: Jalen Milroe, Joe Milton, about a dozen rookie Cowboys defenders. But we’re coming up on 4,000 words of preseason game previews. We’ll catch up on everything on Monday. Until then, don’t overdose on meaningless and terrible football. That’s my vocation, and affliction.