Have you been hibernating this summer? Have you slept through the NFL’s entire preseason schedule? (Or maybe, considering the tepid action on the field, the preseason schedule put you to sleep.) Well, if that applies to you in any way, or if you just haven’t been paying close attention, I’ve got you covered.
As someone who tried to keep up with all this stuff so I can write about it, I came away with four general takeaways from the preseason. You can learn from them if you haven’t already drafted, or it can give you some context for your game-day decisions going forward.
1. The Rookie Quarterbacks Certainly Look the Part
An eye-popping six rookie quarterbacks went in the first dozen picks of the 2024 NFL Draft. For the most part, their first preseason experience was extremely positive. The one exception was J.J. McCarthy, who played well, but then suffered a season-ending injury.
The other five seem to be right on schedule. Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels are already getting drafted as Fantasy Football QB1s. Bo Nix secured the starting job in Denver, and Drake Maye still might in New England. Michael Penix played well for the Falcons, but he’ll be understudying behind Kirk Cousins, as was always going to be the case. This group looks special, and will be making a major impact on Fantasy Football for years to come.
2. Good Luck Trying to Find Value on the Top Rookie Receivers
If you were anywhere near social media in late July and early August, you probably saw plenty of training camp highlights from Malik Nabers, the Giants first-round wideout. That pretty much set the tone in terms of how the top rookie receivers have made a splash in their first camps. Unfortunately, that also means it’s almost impossible to get them at any kind of value in Fantasy drafts.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is being drafted as an WR1, and Nabers has risen to the WR2 ranks. Rome Odunze is moving up boards, despite the logjam of receivers in Chicago, Brian Thomas Jr. has won a starting role with the Jaguars, and Xavier Worthy’s long touchdown catch in the Chiefs second preseason game ensured that he won’t come too cheap. The only first-rounder presenting any kind of value right now is Carolina’s Xavier Legette, who feels like a sneaky play based on his typical Fantasy draft spot.
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3. No Major Injuries
I talked above about J.J. McCarthy going down for the season in Minnesota. Outside of that, there were no injuries that took place during camp or preseason games likely to have much of an impact on Fantasy drafts (or the opening of the season for that matter). Nuisance injuries to guys like Puka Nacua and Jahmyr Gibbs seem to have worked themselves out.
That’s been good news for Fantasy players, who can draft guys with certainty. But it also leads me to my next point, which is…
4. We Know Very Little
I don’t know how many times I turned on a preseason game this month hoping to find nuggets of useful Fantasy information, and there were none forthcoming. Teams are smart in that they don’t want to expose their key players to injury. That means first-stringers and even second-stringers usually sit out much of the preseason action.
it also means that we have very little knowledge about what these teams are going to look like in Week 1. Who’ll be on the field, how will touches will be distributed, who gets the goal-line touches, etc. It’s all up in the air, to an extent. Welcome to the Great Unknown era of Fantasy Football, where educated guesses aren’t so educated anymore.
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