So how long do you want/expect

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.