The Preseason Performance Trap: Why We're About to Wildly Overrate Four Rookies Who Won't Matter in January

Here's what I know after watching this second week of NFL preseason football. We are in the middle of one of the most dangerous times of the NFL calendar, when desperate fans, bored analysts, and franchise decision makers start believing that what happens in August actually means something in December. It doesn't. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you stop wasting emotional energy on players who will be practice squad casualties by Thanksgiving.

Let's start with the obvious culprit in this week's preseason theater of the absurd. Bo Nix had a nice game for Denver. Fine. The kid moved around, completed some passes to wide open receivers, and didn't throw the football into the stands. This is what we call a successful preseason game for a rookie quarterback. But let me tell you something about preseason quarterback performances that the national media refuses to understand. The defenses you face in August are not NFL defenses. The coverage is soft. The pass rush is lazy. The safeties are playing 15 yards off the receiver because they're worried about getting exposed on a blown assignment. Bo Nix is not suddenly a world beater because he threw for 200 yards against third-string defensive backs who are trying to make the practice squad roster.

I'm not saying Bo Nix is a bust. I'm saying that extrapolating his preseason performance into some grand narrative about his future in Denver is exactly the kind of thinking that gets you fired from a coaching job. The real quarterbacks, the ones who will matter in the NFL, they make you uncomfortable in the preseason. They force you to confront the fact that they might not have the arm talent, the decision making, or the poise to play in this league at the highest level. Those discomfort moments matter far more than a clean pocket and open receivers.

Now let's talk about Fernando Mendoza, because this is where the preseason trap gets really dangerous. A backup quarterback for the 49ers had a bad game. He threw incompletions. Maybe his footwork was off. Maybe the receivers weren't open. Who cares? This is a guy who is fighting for a spot on the practice squad, not competing for the starting job. When we see a young player struggle in preseason, we immediately conclude that he doesn't have what it takes. We pronounce his NFL career over before it's even begun. This is cowardly analysis masquerading as football intelligence.

The truth is that preseason results tell you almost nothing about a player's actual NFL future. They tell you something about how a player performs in a game with no stakes against players with minimal ability. That's it. That's the entire predictive value. I've seen backup quarterbacks look like hall of famers in the preseason and never see an NFL field again. I've seen starting quarterbacks look completely lost in preseason games and then go on to lead their teams to playoff victories. The game of football is wildly context dependent, and the context of preseason football is so removed from real football that it's almost irrelevant.

But here's what really gets me about this week's narrative. We're talking about Geno Smith like his preseason performance matters to his standing in New York. Geno Smith is either going to be the Jets quarterback this season, or he isn't. A good preseason game doesn't change that reality. A bad preseason game doesn't change it either. The Jets already know what they have in Geno Smith. They've watched him in practice for weeks. They know his tendencies, his reads, his decision-making patterns. They don't need the preseason to tell them whether Geno Smith can play in this league. They already know the answer.

What really matters is whether Geno Smith can execute the Jets offense when he's facing NFL defenses that are trying to stop him, with pass rushes that are actually dangerous, and safeties that are in the right coverage. That doesn't happen until the regular season starts. Everything before that is just extra practice reps with a different set of uniforms on the opposing side of the field. The fact that he looked good in preseason week two tells me absolutely nothing about whether the Jets are going to have success in 2024.

The De'Zhaun Stribling situation is particularly egregious because it reveals just how susceptible we are to the preseason trap. A rookie wide receiver has caught some passes in preseason games. Great. Do you know what separates the good receivers in this league from the great ones? It's not their ability to get open against third-string defensive backs. It's their ability to create separation against NFL cornerbacks, their ability to make contested catches, their ability to run routes with precision at high speeds, and their ability to process the game at the speed it's played in the regular season.

I'm sure Stribling is a tremendous talent. The 49ers don't draft receivers in early rounds by accident. But I'm also sure that his preseason performance is creating a false sense of his readiness for the NFL. There is a massive gap between preseason football and regular season football. Every single year, there are receivers who look like world-beaters in the preseason and then disappear once the real games start. Why? Because they were playing against inferior competition. That's the only explanation that matters.

Here's what actually concerns me about what we saw this week. We're using preseason performances to validate draft decisions that were made months ago, when the real work of player evaluation should be happening right now, in real time, in practice. The 49ers front office doesn't need to watch Stribling's preseason highlights to know whether they got the pick right. They need to watch him in practice, in one-on-one drills, in competitive situations against their own defensive backs. That's where the real evaluation happens.

The same goes for Bo Nix. Sean Payton has had weeks and weeks of practice tape to evaluate. He doesn't need a preseason game to tell him whether Nix is going to work out as his quarterback. He needs to see how Nix processes information, how he handles adversity, how he responds to coaching. Those things happen in practice. The preseason game is just a dress rehearsal. You wouldn't judge an actor's entire career based on a dress rehearsal performance. Why are we doing that with football players?

What's happening right now, in this moment, is that we're all getting seduced by the illusion of competition. Preseason football looks like real football. The uniforms are the same. The field is the same. The scoreboard works the same way. But the game itself is fundamentally different. The intensity is different. The preparation is different. The talent level is different. We're comparing apples to oranges and then acting like we've discovered something meaningful about the fruit.

I'm going to make a prediction that will probably anger some people. Most of the rookies who look great this preseason will look very different when they're asked to perform against NFL defenses that are actually trying to stop them. Most of the veterans who look bad this preseason will look about the way they usually look in the regular season. Most of the consensus narratives that are being built right now, in August, will be completely irrelevant by December.

This is not to say that preseason games are completely useless. They do tell you something. They tell you about health. They tell you about which players have good football instincts and which players need more development. They tell you about relative talent levels, to some degree. But they don't tell you who's going to succeed in the NFL. They don't tell you which rookies are going to be stars and which ones are going to be busts. They don't tell you whether your quarterback can lead a winning team.

What matters now, in September, is how these players perform against real defenses. How does Bo Nix look when the pass rush is actually in his face? How does De'Zhaun Stribling perform when he's facing cornerbacks who understand the game at a high level? How does Geno Smith execute the Jets offense when defensive coordinators have spent weeks preparing specifically to stop what he likes to do? That's when we'll know something real.

VERDICT: Enjoy the preseason performances if you want to. They're harmless entertainment. But do not, under any circumstances, make long-term judgments about players based on what you see in August. The preseason is a mirage. Treat it accordingly.