Rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders impressed in his NFL debut for Cleveland. (David Jensen/Getty Images)
The summer’s first full weekend of NFL preseason games wrapped up Sunday. It was notable more for the mere fact that teams were back to playing games than for much that will still matter once the matchups actually count next month.
But there was an eye-catching performance by the NFL’s most prominent fourth-string quarterback and most closely scrutinized fifth-round draft pick. There was a harrowing on-field scene in Atlanta. And there was a 70-yard (70!) field goal.
Here’s what to know.
Shedeur Sanders stole the show . The Colorado product and son of one of the greatest cornerbacks in league history was the story of the NFL draft in April when he plummeted through two entire days and 143 selections before being taken with the sixth choice of the fifth round on Day 3 by the Cleveland Browns. Sanders has worked behind fellow Browns quarterbacks Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and rookie Dillon Gabriel on the training-camp practice field.
But with Flacco, as a 40-year-old former Super Bowl MVP who’s entering his 18th NFL season, on the sideline for the preseason opener while Pickett and Gabriel were shelved by hamstring injuries, Sanders got his chance Friday night in Charlotte. And he made the most of it, completing 14 of 23 passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns while playing into the third quarter against the Carolina Panthers.
“I didn’t know I was playing until, I don’t know, one of these days that was close,” Sanders said during his postgame news conference. “And then, you know, I just prepared as normal. But it was definitely that switch kicked in. … Ball is ball. Ball [has] never been a problem for me, whatever optics or whatever everybody makes up after, outside the game. But in the game, I know who I am.”
It wasn’t a perfect performance. But perhaps most importantly, Sanders looked like he belonged.
“There are things that Shedeur can clean up [and] he will clean up,” Coach Kevin Stefanski said in a video news conference Saturday. “But, by and large, I thought the operation was really good.”
Nothing is settled at this point. The path of least resistance for Stefanski remains having Flacco as his season-opening starter. But Sanders’s performance Friday has altered the conversation about the Browns’ quarterback jumble. He quickly demonstrated that he is a consideration and a potentially viable option for Stefanski, whether in Week 1 or later. That’s some rare good quarterback news for a franchise emerging from the tumult of the Deshaun Watson saga, with his controversial and ill-fated tenure with the team perhaps about to expire as he misses much (or all) of this season after suffering a second rupture of his right Achilles tendon.
The Browns next head to Philadelphia for a joint practice Wednesday with the Eagles and a preseason game Saturday.
Cam Little made a kick from very, very long range. As the first half expired Saturday night in Jacksonville, the Jaguars’ second-year kicker connected on a 70-yard field goal. Little and his teammates exuberantly celebrated a kick that was four yards longer than the still-standing regular season record held by former Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker.
It’s a sign of the NFL kicking times. Kickers keep getting better and more accurate from otherworldly distances. Both the 937 total field goals and the 195 field goals of 50 yards or longer last season were the most in league history, according to data released at the NFL scouting combine by the league and competition committee. Little did his part, connecting on five of his six field goal tries from 50 yards or longer last season as a rookie and 27 of 29 overall.
Little’s big kick could revive the debate about whether kickers are too good and if that should lead the NFL and competition committee to contemplate narrowing the goalposts. But there doesn’t seem to be a major push for that at this point. The league and committee like scoring, and the 45.8 points per game last season were the NFL’s most since 2021. Also, more long field goal attempts mean fewer punts. And the punt is now the sport’s most hazardous play following the safety-related improvements to the kickoff, according to NFL health and safety leaders.
Consider this for late-in-the-half and late-game situations: If your kicker can hit a 70-yard field goal, that means you are only 13 yards from being in field goal range if you get a touchback while receiving the kickoff and take possession at your own 35-yard line under this year’s new rule.
The Lions and Falcons showed how much the NFL has changed. There was a frightening moment on the opening play of Friday’s fourth quarter at Mercedes-Benz Stadium when Morice Norris, a second-year safety for the Lions, was injured during a tackle and was taken from the field in an ambulance.
By night’s end, the Lions announced that Norris was in stable condition at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital and had “feeling and movement in all his extremities.” Norris wrote Saturday on Instagram that he was “all good.”
But there was no way of knowing that initially amid a scene reminiscent of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin being taken from the field in an ambulance after collapsing following a hit and suffering cardiac arrest during a January 2023 game in Cincinnati.
The teams lined up and the Falcons snapped the ball. But play did not resume. The players stood on the field with the clock running. They gathered, grasping hands and bowing their heads. After more than eight minutes had ticked off the game clock, referee Shawn Hochuli announced the game had been suspended.
“Raheem Morris is a class act,” Lions Coach Dan Campbell said afterward of his Falcons counterpart. “He’s the ultimate class act. So we agreed that it just didn’t feel right to finish that game.”
The fourth quarter of an NFL preseason game is inconsequential to most. But it does matter to those players on the field. NFL jobs with NFL salaries are at stake. The stadium might be far from filled. But those fans in the stands are paying customers. Yet even those players on the field Friday seemed to have no interest in continuing to play.
Those in the NFL and its fans continue to grapple with the implications of head injuries and the sport’s risks. There was a public conversation last season about whether Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa should retire after suffering at least his third diagnosed concussion since 2022. New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said it will test the brain of gunman Shane Tamura for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Tamura killed four people last month at the Manhattan office building that houses the NFL’s headquarters and fatally shot himself in the chest, according to authorities. He left a note in which he expressed the view that he suffered from the degenerative brain condition and wrote that the NFL “failed us,” though he never played football beyond high school.
Even the offseason near-ban of the Eagles’ push-the-quarterback sneak resulted not from concrete, existing injury data but from fears about the potential for a catastrophic injury on the tush push (along with concerns about aesthetics and, some would contend, competitive motives).
Football is still inherently violent. But it’s safer than it once was, with toughened protocols around head injuries, improved helmet technology, rule changes and evolving player attitudes toward concussions. It’s much more common for players to self-report concussion symptoms or report them about a teammate, NFL health and safety officials have said.
And there is far more introspection about what playing the sport entails, as the Lions and Falcons demonstrated.
**There was more.**The NFL eliminated overtime in preseason games in 2021. And the Dolphins and Chicago Bears played to a 24-all tie Sunday. ...
There were promising signs from the New York Giants’ two celebrated first-round draft picks, pass rusher Abdul Carter and quarterback Jaxson Dart, in their preseason debut Saturday against the Bills in Orchard Park, New York. Carter played only six snaps but got close to Bills backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky on all three of his pass rushes.
Dart zipped a 28-yard touchdown to wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey in the second quarter as part of a 12-for-19, 154-yard showing. Russell Wilson is in line to be the Giants’ season-opening starter. But no one should be surprised if Dart plays at some point this season.
Some more experienced reserve quarterbacks played well. Tanner McKee threw for 252 yards and two touchdowns Thursday for the Eagles against the Bengals. Skylar Thompson threw for 233 yards and three touchdowns Saturday in Jacksonville for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Stetson Bennett threw for 188 yards and two touchdowns Saturday for the Los Angeles Rams against the Dallas Cowboys. ...
There were some notable injuries. Quarterback Anthony Richardson left the Indianapolis Colts’ game Thursday night in Baltimore after suffering a dislocated right pinkie finger on a sack. He participated in Saturday’s practice, but his injury cost him a game-night opportunity to gain ground in his starting-quarterback competition with Daniel Jones. ...
Tennessee Titans tailback Tyjae Spears suffered a high ankle sprain Saturday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that will keep him sidelined for at least the remainder of the preseason. ...
Cowboys star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb apparently was not injured in a sideline collision with an official. Lamb was not playing and was not in uniform but got too close to the field while watching a play. He was penalized for a sideline violation. ...
Travis Hunter, the Jaguars’ prized rookie dual threat, had a quiet preseason debut but did play on both side of the ball, with 11 snaps at wide receiver and eight plays at cornerback against the Steelers.