What to Watch in the Preseason (If You Can't Watch Nothing)

The NFL preseason is a month of important nothings. It’s not so much three weeks of foreplay as three weekends of awkward Tinder dates. It doesn’t prepare you for the sweet, life-enriching consummation of real football, but it does prepare you to appreciate it.

This preseason viewing guide is merely a series of suggestions, like when your financial planner advises you to save some money, or your dentist tells you to floss, though not nearly as beneficial. We both know that you aren’t going to watch much preseason football. But I will, because football is my passion and vocation, and I don’t know what August weekends would be like without a cavalcade of third-string quarterbacks and the crippling FOMO that overwhelms me if I spend a few hours at the pool instead of watching the Panthers and Texans play a glorified scrimmage.

This guide, in that sense, is a document of my shame and a roadmap to perdition. But it’s also a chance to check in on some training camp storylines, familiarize yourself with a few rookies and give you a heads-up as to when Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow might peek out of their groundhog, er, burrows. And if you would rather watch baseball, Peacemaker or grass turning beige, Walkthrough will still be here every Monday to catch you up on anything interesting that happens.

Preamble over. Now to rank all 32 NFL teams in terms of preseason watchability:

32. Los Angeles Rams

No team tries harder to be boring by design and get the preseason over with than the Rams.

Matthew Stafford has never thrown a preseason pass for the Rams, and his kinda-sorta back injury will prompt lots of uninformative, vague broadcaster babble. Stetson Bennett has thrown eight preseason interceptions in two years, but Rams coaches claim he has “grown up so much” since we last saw him. Bennett turns 28 in October.

31. Buffalo Bills

Josh Allen threw a total of three passes in the 2024 preseason. Backups Mitch Trubisky and Mike White are dreary August quarter munchers. One of the biggest Bills offseason storylines was that their starting playmaker corps was bad/boring, yet they did little to upgrade it. Why on earth would you want to watch their third-string playmaker corps?

We won’t even get the punter battle we were promised. The Bills released Too Deep Zone legend Jake Camarda earlier in camp. Brad Robbins has won the punting job. So feel free to space out on the Bills until … mid-January, really, but more likely until their Week 1 showdown with the Ravens.

30. Pittsburgh Steelers

Mason Rudolph has thrown 188 career preseason passes for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I cannot bear to watch another one.

Any team that signs Aaron Rodgers is docked 3,000 Preseason Watchability Points based on Rodgers sideline reaction shots, Rodgers-centric broadcaster bibble and the inevitable sideline interview where Rodgers dons his Regular Human mask for five minutes and makes smalltalk-sounding noises to appease the lowly corporeal lifeforms whose adulation he craves.