For those of us whose goal in life is to make snap judgments on the newly drafted franchise quarterbacks and the retreads still aspiring to that status, the good news was that nearly all of them played this weekend.
Now for the inevitable downside. Because it’s the first game up the preseason and NFL teams lean toward the conservatism of military organizations, most of those multimillion-dollar assets played a series or two. Still, it’s worth a bubble wrap wrap-up, so let’s get to those all-important hot takes.
Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams activate the hype machine
For weeks now, we’ve all been waiting with bated breath (not) for every headline play the two marquee draft picks generated in the draft. Given the constant barrage of meaningless noise about all that, why not continue it into the regular season?
The good news is that both guys looked like the real deal in limited action. Daniels was especially lauded for the long dime he dropped that led to his short touchdown run. Williams, meanwhile, didn’t quite land a highlight play, but he was good enough in his stint to keep Chicago coach Matt Ebenflus from being thrown to the wolves.
Once again, there’s a downside. Most teams have their defensive starters out, plus neither guy got hit substantially, and they’re operating against generic defenses with no game planning. Still, they both did enough to knock them down from a five to a three on the Bust-o-Meter, which lists no-doubt busts as genuine 10s.
Justin Fields rings the Bust-o-Meter bell
The one guy who did “elevate” his status as a possible bust was Justin Fields, who fumbled not one but two center exchanges. Given that ball security was a weakness of Fields going in, we’ll be keeping a close eye on him going forward to see if his future performances justify a bump up higher than 6.
JJ McCarthy did exactly what we expected
The skinny on McCarthy going into the draft was that he could make all the throws, but he’d need time to figure things out because he wasn’t allowed to make some of those throws under Jim Harbaugh at Michigan.
That perfectly explains his extended cameo in his first game. McCarthy quickly threw a bad interception, then recovered sufficiently to post a couple of TD passes. Placeholder QB Sam Darnold doesn’t need to be worried yet, but he should be looking over his shoulder right about now.
So did Michael Penix and Bo Nix, more or less
Given their perceived flaws going into the draft, Penix and Nix were our two most promising candidates to be full-blown busts. But neither QB hurt his cause, and Nix proved to be surprisingly good at what Denver coach Sean Payton wants him to do, which is checkdown, checkdown, checkdown, with a few runs thrown in for variety.
The final count is that McCarthy stays at a solid 5, which Nix unexpectedly drops to a 4. Disappointing for those of us who love schadenfreude, but hey, the preseason is young, right?
Drake Maye is still Drake Ma(y)be, and we learned nothing about Anthony Richardson
The new Patriots savior QB—good luck with that one--did nothing to hurt his cause, nor did he do anything to advance it. Maye showed up and played a series, completed a couple of short passes, and air-mailed a longer one, which keeps him at a five until the Eagle's defense presumably gets a more extended shot at him this week.
Richardson, too, was a virtual no-show, completing two passes for 25 yards against the Broncos. At least they’re ignoring owner Jim Irsay’s edict to run him ‘til he drops, as his lone carry went for a single yard.
Check back after week 2, when we’ll hopefully have more viable trashing to do!
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