We learned plenty. Here are the highlights as I see them.
There’s a reason you don’t hold your fantasy football draft until after the final preseason game
And this year that reason’s name is Jordy Nelson, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers and a guy that was a guaranteed 90-catch, 1,300 yards and 10 touchdown producer at least. Now, all he’s producing is tears.
Of course, you also lost Kelvin Benjamin of the Carolina Panthers this week. And while he probably wasn’t a first or a second-round pick on your draft board, he was probably a third rounder and a guy you would start. Benjamin was the only target quarterback Cam Newton liked last year and was an easy 80-catch, 1,000-yard season and probably about eight touchdowns. So that’s all gone.
Obviously Randall Cobb can pick up some of the slack for Nelson in Green Bay and Devante Adams now becomes a high-value late-round pick or your first waiver-wire pick up, but if you already drafted, you’ve lost not one, but two starters on your teams. Wait it out next season like I do. You won’t regret it. Just ask everybody that drafted Aaron Hernandez last July.
The NFL is not going give extra protection to quarterbacks in read-option offenses
And it’s time to face it and adapt. When Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker Terrell Suggs laid into Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford this weekend, no flag was thrown. Not only that, but when Chip Kelly wanted the NFL to look at the play (for a possible fine on Suggs, most likely), he was told emphatically that there would be no fine, the hit was legal and, in effect, stop running such a dumb offensive play.
Nobody seriously thinks Kelly is going to run Bradford much on that read-option fake, but that just makes that play all the more deadly. If Bradford does keep the ball, he’ll probably be running in the open field. So Suggs gave him a good smack there and since Bradford has missed most of the last two seasons with torn ACLs, maybe Kelly doesn’t want to take that kind of chance with him. The San Francisco 49ers, Carolina Panthers and Seattle Seahawks should all take note.
Starting quarterbacks are behind the curve early
We saw a lot of bad picks and bad overthrows from some of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks not named Aaron Rodgers (who is already on-point and in postseason form). Eli Manning, Joe Flacco and Andy Dalton in particular seemed to have a rough time connecting with their own receivers this weekend.
Manning was 4-for-14 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, of all teams. Flacco was 3-for-7 with two picks against the Eagles. Dalton was a pathetic 6-for-13 with two picks and he was sacked four times.
St. Louis Rams quarterback Nick Foles was just as bad, going 3-for-7 with an interception returned for a touchdown.
This all brings us to the next thing we learned…
Reducing the number of preseason games will not reduce the number of injuries
On the surface, that seems to fly in the face of logic but the proposal you always hear about replacing the four-game preseason is a two-game preseason. And how would that have affected the losses of Nelson and Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey this week? In fact, we lost two players in the same joint practice just a few days before with Benjamin and the Miami Dolphins’ Louis Delmas.
Football is a contact sport. People are going to get hurt, but injuries like these four guys suffered from are freak things. Especially Nelson’s ACL tear as he was completely untouched.
Preseason games are glorified scrimmages, but it’s the best chance quarterbacks get to get in sync with their receivers and for defensive players to tackle at all under the new collective bargaining agreement. How many teams did you see play over the weekend that looked ready to start the regular season? Besides the Green Bay Packers?
Yeah, I didn’t see any either.
