NFL preseason winners, losers: Rookie QBs sizzle in debuts

The NFL preseason slate only just began last week, but hyperbole season throughout the league is in full swing.
As teams advance from training camp work to facing actual opponents in exhibitions and joint practices, it’s routine for fans to start drawing hasty conclusions. But with most franchises sitting out stars in the early going – and others entirely abstaining from trotting out any starters – there is only so much meaning that can be gleaned from the August setup. Still, it’s clear that some teams and young players stood out more than others – for better or worse.
With that in mind, here are the biggest winners and losers of the NFL’s first week of preseason action:
Impossibly lofty expectations are a fact of life at this point for Williams, who was compared to Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers before ever taking an NFL snap. Somehow, the No. 1 pick in this year’s still managed to deliver in his debut Saturday for the Chicago Bears, as he showed glimpses of his singular playmaking prowess against the Buffalo Bills. Williams’ most highlight-worthy play came on a 26-yard dart on the run to tight end Cole Kmet. There were several other notable moments from a day that ended after just two drives. Above all, however, Williams reinforced that the Bears finally have someone behind center who looks capable of elevating an attack rather than weighing it down.
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As part of a historic quarterback class that featured six passers being taken in the top 12 picks, Williams was hardly alone in commanding a significant spotlight for his first game. And several of his peers also put together notable outings. Among them:
Should any of these showings be taken as a likely indicator of a successful season to come? Almost certainly not. But a strong start can build confidence – even if only for fan bases desperate for encouragement.
After Williams wrapped up his day, a far less-heralded Bears rookie began to turn heads. Booker, a fifth-round pick out of Kansas, racked up 2 ½ sacks and three quarterback hits. The 6-6, 245-pound defensive end projects as a developmental edge rusher after the Minnesota transfer made just one start in his collegiate career. If Booker can maintain his disruptiveness against a higher level of competition, however, coach Matt Eberflus might be compelled to find opportunities for him on a defense that ranked 31st in sacks last season with 30.
A spot that was long a significant source of uncertainty for Philadelphia might now be rife with possibility. With veteran James Bradberry moving to safety, the Eagles have a wealth of promising options at cornerback, with several of them standing out Friday against the Ravens. First-round pick Quinyon Mitchell was the easiest to notice, as he had strong showing both on the outside and in the slot, save for a dropped would-be interception. But Kelee Ringo also fared well with two pass breakups. With Mitchell potentially manning the slot and Ringo backing up Darius Slay and Isaiah Rodgers on the outside, new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio could have ample flexibility on the back end.
No one relishes – and utilizes – skill-position speed quite like the Dolphins. It was both fitting and somewhat of a surprise, then, when Mike McDaniel’s crew picked up Wright, the former track standout who averaged 7.4 yards per carry in his final season at Tennessee, in the fourth round of April’s NFL draft. Touches won’t be easy to come by in a backfield that already features burners in Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane. But Wright made a solid case for work by rushing for 55 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries against the Falcons. Maybe his only mistake: launching the ball into the stands after his score.
In reconfiguring the Green Bay Packers’ defense, new coordinator Jeff Hafley has placed aggressiveness and generating takeaways at the center of his scheme. He might have found a major asset in Williams, the fourth-round safety from Oregon who has been lauded throughout training camp for repeatedly finding the ball. That style extended to the field Saturday against the Cleveland Browns, as he forced a fumble and tied for a team high with six tackles. Second-round safety Javon Bullard appears to have the inside track to start at free safety, but Williams might force his way into action in some fashion if he keeps producing big plays.
Throughout Sean McVay’s run as coach, the Los Angeles Rams’ insistence on sitting his starters for the summer slate has fueled the preseason rise of some off-the-radar players. The latest unlikely standout might be Whittington, the sixth-round rookie receiver out of Texas who notched a team-high 74 yards on six catches Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys. Don’t go labeling him the next Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp as the franchise’s next major pass-catching draft steal just yet. But McVay did tell reporters after the game that Whittington is “going to be a factor for us.”
The New Orleans Saints are pitting Haener, the 2023 fourth-round pick out of Fresno State, against rookie Spencer Rattler in the battle to be starting quarterback Derek Carr’s backup. While that competition continues, Haener showed resiliency Saturday against the Arizona Cardinals by playing with 32 stitches in his face after to undergoing an operation last week related to his rare form of skin cancer. He fared well on the field, too, completing nine of 13 passes for 107 yards.
The best preseason moments are often ones that can be celebrated independent of their predictive value. On its face, a 37-yard field goal to seal an exhibition win as time expired might not seem worthy of fanfare. But there was something undoubtedly special when Smyth, a former Gaelic football goalkeeper, converted his first ever field goal attempt at any level of American football. New Orleans blared U2 in the locker room to celebrate the Irish kicker before giving him the game ball. Regardless of what happens in his push against incumbent Blake Grupe, Smyth stands as the latest neat story for the NFL’s International Pathway Program.
Andy Reid’s decision to play his starters for the first quarter of Saturday’s tilt with the Jacksonville Jaguars could have regular-season ramifications for the two-time defending champions. Wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown was hospitalized with a sternoclavicular joint dislocation and will miss “some time,” Reid said, throwing into question Brown’s status for the season opener in less than a month. Brown was signed by the Chiefs this offseason as part of the effort to retool Patrick Mahomes’ receiving corps and rediscover an explosive element that had largely disappeared from the offense. Mahomes can still count on perennial Pro Bowl tight end Travis Kelce and receiver Rashee Rice, while speedy rookie Xavier Worthy could add an electrifying presence once he proves comfortable navigating the leap to the pros. But with a tough slate to start the season – the Chiefs face the Ravens, Bengals and Falcons in the first three weeks – any missed time for Brown could prove costly.
With Russell Wilson sitting out the Pittsburgh Steelers’ preseason opener against the Houston Texans on Thursday, Fields was faced with what might have been his best platform to make a push for the team’s starting quarterback job. But two fumbled snap exchanges “negated a lot of good things” from Fields’ performance, coach Mike Tomlin told reporters afterward. While Fields’ electric potential was evident as he went 5-of-6 for 67 yards, any more mistakes likely will prevent him from catching Wilson, whom Tomlin described as being in the “pole position” of the race for the starting role.
There’s no point in pillorying the No. 3 pick after he played just six snaps in the second series of Thursday’s contest against the Carolina Panthers. Still, as the rest of the top rookie signal-callers stood out and other young quarterbacks received extensive work, the lack of action feels like a missed opportunity for Maye and the Patriots. First-year coach Jerod Mayo has made it known that veteran Jacoby Brissett is the team’s starter at the moment, and that dynamic seems unlikely to change for some time. Even if Mayo is taking the long view on Maye’s development, why not test the hyperathletic gunslinger’s handle of offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s attack? It didn’t help that classmate Joe Milton III, the raw but rocket-armed sixth-round rookie out of Tennessee, sparked a few big plays on two scoring drives. No reason to draw any conclusions now, but how and when New England ramps up Maye’s workload bears watching.
Defensive depth is already a problem area for Atlanta, which is largely counting on former Day 2 draft picks and mid-level signings to carry the unit in lieu of splashy investments (outside of Pro Bowl safety Jessie Bates III). That issue was exacerbated by the team losing third-round outside linebacker Bralen Trice – who is out for the season after suffering an ACL injury against the Dolphins – and safety DeMarcco Hellams – whose outlook remains to be determined after he left Friday’s game with his left leg in an air cast. Neither player was set to be a starter, but this unit can’t afford many more hits after failing to add any difference-makers just one year after posting the league’s worst pass-rush win rate (31%), according to ESPN.
If an offensive lineman is being widely discussed in the preseason, it’s probably not for anything positive. Carman, the Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle, earned the wrong kind of attention Saturday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, drawing three flags for holding and another for a false start. The 2021 second-round pick out of Clemson hasn’t yielded anywhere close to a proper return on the draft capital spent on him, appearing in just two games last year after starting six as a rookie. As he continues on a downward trajectory, Carman looks like a candidate to be a casualty of the roster-cut deadline in two weeks.
Some sloppiness was to be expected as teams work through the kinks of the NFL’s newly implemented “dynamic kickoff.” But the opening week of play served as a reminder that almost everyone has some studying to do on the fresh play, as penalties were commonplace. The lowlight came when Chiefs returner Mecole Hardman attempted to down a kick in the end zone after it first bounced there and then went into play. The result was a safety for the Jaguars – but not before some confusion from the officials, who originally ruled it as a touchback. Expect some serious consternation if any team makes these kind of blunders in the fall.
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