NFL Preseason Week 1: Six Games Thursday, and One Rookie Everyone Will Watch

Preseason football is back Thursday night, six games deep, and almost none of it will tell you what you want to know about September. Starters play a series, maybe two. Coordinators call the blandest thing in the folder. The fourth quarter belongs to guys whose names are not on the back of anyone's jersey.

Watch it anyway. Here is Thursday, all times Eastern:

• 7:00 Lions at Bengals
• 7:00 Packers at Steelers
• 7:30 Colts at Patriots
• 8:00 Cardinals at Raiders
• 8:00 Chargers at Texans
• 9:00 Titans at 49ers

The one with an actual reason to tune in is Cardinals at Raiders, because Fernando Mendoza takes his first professional snaps. He went No. 1 overall to Las Vegas, and a top pick's preseason debut is the rare exhibition series where the sample size being tiny does not stop anyone from drawing conclusions from it.

What is worth watching in a game like that is not the stat line. It is the stuff that survives contact with a real defense: how fast he gets the ball out when the first read is covered, whether he slides or takes the hit, how the offense operates in the ten seconds before the snap. Those habits show up in August and they do not change much by November.

The rest of the slate is roster math. Teams cut to 53 in a couple of weeks, and for a long list of players Thursday is one of three auditions they will get. That is the honest appeal of preseason week one. The games do not matter and the jobs very much do.