WFT 2021 Pre-Season Games Thread

Injuries are cropping up around the league. I don't want any one that is a starter or still in the running to be a starter to play Saturday.

Get thru this week healthy, and c'mon week 1.

Injuries are cropping up around the league. I don't want any one that is a starter or still in the running to be a starter to play Saturday.

Get thru this week healthy, and c'mon week 1.

I would be completely fine if none of the defensive starters play. Come to think of it, I'd be fine if some key offensive starters would sit too (Terry, AG, Fitzy, Logan).

I wouldn't mind the offense getting a couple series against Baltimore, along with other key guys who need reps - like J Davis for example. I don't think you can be afraid of injuries, as much as you can be concerned about being unprepared for the opener.

It's true, someone could get hurt, but someone could get hurt week 1 too...that's the game.

I wouldn't mind the offense getting a couple series against Baltimore, along with other key guys who need reps - like J Davis for example. I don't think you can be afraid of injuries, as much as you can be concerned about being unprepared for the opener.



It's true, someone could get hurt, but someone could get hurt week 1 too...that's the game.This. I am also interested to see if there is a noticeable difference thru the first 4 weeks in teams that played starters during preseason and those that don't.

And there is no better contrast for that then us vs the Chargers week 1. I can't believe that a new head coach with a new OC and a rebuilt Oline didn't feel the need to put their first team offense out for any reps. I don't believe they are this week either.

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I wouldn't mind the offense getting a couple series against Baltimore, along with other key guys who need reps - like J Davis for example. I don't think you can be afraid of injuries, as much as you can be concerned about being unprepared for the opener.

It's true, someone could get hurt, but someone could get hurt week 1 too...that's the game.

Agreed.
There's some sort of balance to be found, but it's a team sport, you need to take reps to build chemistry. And you can get injured in practice too.

Well from one perspective, Bill Belichick, Andy Reid and Ron Rivera are/have been playing their starters. A pretty huge amount of experience there, though admittedly they could all be described as old school. All have changes to their offense that require reps.
As CRed said it will be interesting the see the difference, a potentially 2-3 game head start on what is only a 17 game season. Also with the injury rate. How many of the guys who are held out of pre-season are going to go down when they are suddenly faced with the pace and power of a real game without any build up.

The Chargers new head coach has said that their practices are harder than preseason games and that is why they held Herbert out. That is either a bold statement or a dumbass philosophy. Playing SF defense, even in preseason, would have been an excellent opportunity to let their firsts take a few snaps in preparation for our defense.

https://boltbeat.com/posts/la-chargers-preseason-49ers-impressed#slideshow-top-bar-_edvpc959s

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NFL preseason playing-time trends have been turned on their head (https://theathletic.com/2787175/2021/08/26/nfl-preseason-playing-time-trends-have-been-turned-on-their-head/)

NFL coaches are nothing if not predictable.

We’re talking about a peer group that chooses to punt on more than 90 percent of fourth downs in their own territory despite analytics that label the tendency as short-sighted.

This is also a group that seems incapable of coming up with more inventive cliches, as if we don’t realize that “I’ve gotta coach better” really means “my team stinks.”

This is why things can get quite interesting when coaches are thrown a curveball.
That brings us to this season’s change to three preseason games from the previous four, a move that has forced coaches to rethink the consensus approach to playing time in preseason games.

How have coaches reacted to this recalibration? By being … completely unpredictable!

Who would have guessed?

If you’re looking for something of a universal approach to preseason playing time, you’re not going to find it.

On one hand, you have Seattle’s Russell Wilson sitting out a second consecutive preseason game on Saturday. On the other hand, there’s Patrick Mahomes playing into the second quarter (32 snaps, three series) a night earlier.

And that’s not the only contrast to be found.

Take Thursday’s Patriots-Eagles matchup. New England played the overwhelming majority of its starting lineup as Philadelphia sat 10 healthy starters. The Eagles, led by first-year coach Nick Sirianni, deployed exactly one starting offensive lineman.

Also of note was the Vikings’ decision in Week 1 of the preseason to sit more than a third of their active roster; they had 33 inactive players for the matchup with the Broncos.

Minnesota head coach Mike Zimmer’s decision seemed to reap him much less than he bargained for from his backups. The Vikings gave up a safety, an 80-yard touchdown pass and an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

“I told them it was a very poor performance,” Zimmer said in a halftime television interview. “… We made the wrong checks on defense with the safeties. We throw an interception for a touchdown, we went three-and-out on the first two series. Terrible punts. Other than that, it’s been great.”

Minnesota’s inactive list was topped a week later by that of the Rams, with head coach Sean McVay opting to hold out 36 players in Saturday’s matchup against the Raiders.

In recent years, NFL teams have followed a relatively predictable approach to the preseason. They have tended to gradually ramp up playing time for starters and key players in the first two weeks of the preseason before embarking on the so-called dress-rehearsal game in Week 3 and the nobody-who-matters-plays affair in Week 4.

The elimination of that final exhibition game has left coaches with some dilemmas.

Chief among them: How to get bottom-of-the-roster players enough snaps to showcase themselves in their efforts to make a roster — that of their current team or any other — while also preparing key players and resolving critical position battles.

This has proved an interesting balancing act.

“I want to make sure that all 90 guys who are healthy have a chance to put it on tape,” Panthers head coach Matt Rhule said.

With incremental roster cuts coming after each of the three preseason games this year, that evaluation also must occur earlier.

“You want to make sure that you’re not letting guys go that you think can help you,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid told Kansas City reporters.

There are also numerous young players who entered the league last season and played sparingly or not at all in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the preseason. Many of those young players are taking the field for the first time this preseason and need as much playing time as possible.

“We have some guys who didn’t play at all last year,” Zimmer said, “so they missed a whole year.”

All of this has at least some impact on the playing-time decisions for key players.
But it’s also true that things have been trending this way for a while. It long ago became acceptable to keep your most important players sidelined for most of the preseason.

Nearly half of the NFL’s starting quarterbacks have yet to play a single snap this preseason. One of them, the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, won’t play at all, according to head coach Brandon Staley.

“As I mentioned, what’s really important to me and to us, as an organization, is (what happens) on these practice fields,” Staley told reporters.

Only two of the top 10 players in receiving yards last season have played so far this preseason. Both of those players, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill, play for the Chiefs and the famously old-school Reid.

Things were quite different just a decade ago. In 2011, even Tom Brady, then with the Patriots, played in Week 4 of the preseason. He attempted nine passes in that long-forgotten loss to the Giants.

By 2019, the last season with four preseason contests, the mere suggestion of a quarterback of Brady’s stature playing in the preseason finale would have been considered preposterous. Brady played six snaps in this year’s preseason opener before sitting out Week 2. Meanwhile, the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers has played in one preseason game since 2018 and does not seem likely to play this year.
And then there is the McVay method. The Rams coach has very, um, strong opinions on the preseason.

“There is zero chance you will ever see Matthew Stafford take a snap in the preseason for the Rams as long as I’m the coach. That will never happen,” McVay said of his new starting quarterback on “The Doug Gottlieb Show.” “He is not going to play. That’s why it’s important for us to try to get competitive opps against some of these other teams in practice settings.

“Until you tell me that if a guy gets hurt in the preseason that we’ll get those games back or they’ll add them on the schedule afterwards as, ‘Oh yeah, you get two games because you lost those guys in the preseason,’ it’s hard for me to make sense of it.”

Not having a preseason in 2020 likely emboldened coaches to go further down this road.

It’s difficult to argue that the quality of play was affected by the lack of the preseason. Any such argument — at least on offense — quickly falls apart when you consider the NFL set records for touchdowns and points scored last season.
As for the upcoming final week of the preseason, a fair number of teams appear to be approaching it like a traditional Game 3, meaning lots of starters will play.
Or … not.

Colts head coach Frank Reich said Wednesday that he will not play a majority of his starters this week, as previously planned, because Detroit head coach Dan Campbell disclosed to him that the Lions won’t play theirs.

“We kind of re-evaluated,” Reich said. “Most of our starters aren’t going to play.”
As for the remaining teams’ starters, how many will play? And for how long?
You’ll have to wait and see. For once, we have a bit of mystery among NFL coaches.

Maybe they aren’t so predictable after all.

^ interesting to see the evolution of what the preseason means to coaches. I didn't realize so many starting QB's haven't played a snap yet. It's new school vs old school.

^ interesting to see the evolution of what the preseason means to coaches. I didn't realize so many starting QB's haven't played a snap yet. It's new school vs old school.

It’s certainly a balance with multi layers to consider: new joiners on the team, new coaches joining the team, injury history of players, depth at certain positions, etc

This last week in preseason, there is no one in hell I’m playing starters. You got guys fighting to make the team and others who maybe half assing playing thinking about the after hours party later. That is a recipe for injury.