The start of QBs playing less and less time in the season. Is this good?

If it seems like you saw less game action for starting quarterbacks in the NFL preseason, well, you did.

Teams are putting less priority on preseason snaps for starters, so much so that 10 starting quarterbacks didn’t throw a single pass in their preseason, with another 10 starters throwing 10 passes or fewer over their three games. The average NFL starter attempted just 10.1 passes in the preseason this year, which represents a 30% drop from the average of 14.3 in the 2021 preseason.

“I don’t feel like I need to play him in the last game,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said of holding starter Baker Mayfield out of the preseason, even with a new offensive coordinator in Josh Grizzard. “It’s really practice habits, No. 1. How hard are you practicing? How many game situations have you been in, and all of those type of things. The energy you come in with – are you getting the ball out in 7-on-7, or are you patting it and holding it because you’ve got all day? He played in Pittsburgh (in joint practices with the Steelers) like it was a game on Thursday, especially the two-minute situation. It was all sped up for him and he’s done a bunch of practices like that as well. So I feel like the experience of the quarterback and how he practices has something to do with it. It’s the chemistry with everybody going in sync.”

It isn’t just experienced quarterbacks getting held out this year. Michael Penix Jr., a second-year quarterback who started three games as a rookie, didn’t play a snap for the Falcons, nor did Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders, another second-year player. 

As for those who do play, they’re out of games sooner due to the risk of injury. Four years ago, seven starting quarterbacks had more than 25 passes in the preseason, but this year, only two did, and those were on the last two teams with real quarterback competitions, the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints.

There’s a wide disparity in how NFL coaches value preseason game experience, and some of the league’s most established quarterbacks still play more than unproven passers who more legitimately need the work. Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who led the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns last season, played 24 snaps in the preseason, fifth-most among starters. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who’s been to five of the last six Super Bowls and won three of them, ranked in the top 10 with 14 preseason snaps.

“For me, I wanted to get out there,” Mahomes said after playing against the Chicago Bears this weekend. “The preseason is the preseason, [and] We understand that. You want everyone to remain safe and have your health and such things, but at the end of the day, you are a football player [and] You have to play football. There are risks involved in it, and so on, we are in this team, we want to go out there and give opportunities to show that what we do is to bear fruit … it was a small step, but it was a step in the right direction. “

While the difference you want beginners protection, backups can also be harmed. Las Vegas Rids player, Aidan O’Connell, maintained a broken wrist at Las Vegas conclusion, leaving them without a backup of experienced to Gino Smith and perhaps adding a veteran less than two weeks before starting the season.

The balance between preparing players for important games, but also maintaining them to ensure that they reach the first week is an organizational decision. Rahim Morris from Atlanta said that he would make mistakes alongside safety, even if that means that he is the least working for the main players who have a pivotal division game against the Box waving on the horizon in the opening match.

“Indeed, for me, it is about mitigating the injury,” Morris said. “Do not get any Moligan. If we get an important player, we know what he can do, watch him to play against vanilla defense or a very vanilla crime … there is no Moligan, so the things that I can control, and I want to do for us, our society, our cafes, and our institution, as much as I can.”

Fans are also torn between confidence in the coaches’ referee to preserve the players and reduce the risk of injury, but also knowing that they pay for pre -season tickets as part of the season ticket package, and often see players who will not be part of the team in the normal season.

With the expansion of the Reflections of the US Football Association again from a table from 17 games to 18 games, this is likely to coincide with reducing the three -games period to matches, just as it decreased from four to three games before the season when the ordinary season added the 17th match in 2021. This means less chances to play anyone, and turn more importance to common practice and practice.

It is not different from the main changes that have evolved in the past twenty years to get rid of practices for two days and reduce the amount of full practices teams that you can get, something that is confronted with a preliminary resistance, but it is ultimately acceptable as a rule.

“It has evolved in a natural way, but it has also evolved in a retroactive manner,” said Stelins coach Mike Tomlin. “The rules governing what we do, how we collect our evaluation together, how we work, the amount of work that we allow, and the time of hours on the day we get with the players. All this has changed for 19 years here.

“I just look at the tools that I spend in terms of preparation for this group, and the guidelines that I have to participate in an attempt to do so. I don’t think I am too much time to compare the preparation of this group 15 years ago, because it is not apple with apples.”

Does the lack of pre -season preparation play the midfielder worse in the first month of the season? In theory, the defenses will face the same ascending ascension, but the numbers show a more severe improvement in Qurtubbere from the beginning of the season until the end of the season, which they showed a decade ago, when the teams had another match to prepare to prepare for this year. Last year, for example, the TD/INT is in the league in the first four weeks of the season 1.81, but that jumped to 2.21 in the last four weeks of the season.

The total success numbers have been improved for a decade for several reasons. But if you look at 2015, the TD/INT ratio was in the first four games 1.73. This number was in the last four games of the 2015 season 1.95. The difference in 2024 TD/IT improved by 22 % from start to finish, compared to a 13 % improvement in 2015.

Whether it is difficult to prove this worst start and improve greater than the pre -season work, but it is a logical part of it.

Greg Aman is the American Football Association correspondent in Fox Sports. He spent a previous contract to cover Pirate to Tampa Bay Mys and athletes. You can follow it on Twitter on Gregauman.

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