Top 10 takeaways from the 2016 NFL preseason

The last week of the NFL preseason doesn’t offer us much intrigue compared to Week 3, but it does give teams an ability to gauge the bottom of their rosters heading into final cuts.

It’s in this we turn the page to the regular season. What do some of the top contenders have to worry about? How did injuries impact the NFL during otherwise meaningless games?

These are among the questions we will answer in looking at the top-10 takeaways from the 2016 NFL preseason.

1. Injuries already derailed some seasons

It’s safe to draw the conclusion that both the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings would have been better off if the preseason didn’t take place.

Just a couple snaps into his second action of the exhibition slate, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo bore the brunt of a questionable Cliff Avril hit — a hit that drove the quarterback’s back into the ground.

After the Cowboys initially showed very little concern over the injury, it was reported that the veteran suffered a broken bone in his back. He’s now expected to be out 8-10 weeks.

With Romo sidelined, the Cowboys will be relying on rookie fourth-round pick Dak Prescott to perform at a high level. While he’s done just that during the preseason, it’s a heck of a lot to ask of him during the regular year.

Meanwhile, the news coming out of Winter Park is even more severe. When reports broke that Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater suffered a serious injury during practice on Tuesday, we paid attention. When reports then surfaced that players were distraught on the practice field, we made sure to pay even closer attention.

When the Vikings announced later Tuesday evening that Bridgewater had suffered a completely torn ACL and dislocated knee, the devastation from those around the NFL came out in droves.

Not only is Bridgewater lost for the season, he’s apparently lucky to have survived the horrible non-contact injury altogether. That’s how dire the situation itself was (more on that here).

On the field, the Vikings are in a world of trouble. They will be relying on journeyman backup Shaun Hill to hold down the fort under center. They will be doing so while attempting to defend their division title. That’s not a scenario anyone in Minnesota would prefer.

Two playoff contenders. One with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. Both now facing the real possibility of their season being over before it even started.

2. The Kaepernick anthem controversy

Colin Kaepernick was the talk of the Bay Area football scene during the entire offseason. From the multiple surgeries he went through to his ridiculous trade demands, the embattled quarterback found a way to stay relevant. This, mere months after he was benched in favor of Blaine Gabbert.

At a time when it seemed Kaepernick himself was becoming irrelevant, he decided to take a stand. It wasn’t an opportunistic moment for the quarterback. Rather, it was all about him standing against what he believes is wrong with American society today — police brutality directed at the minority population.

It’s because of this that the struggling signal caller decided to sit for the national anthem prior to San Francisco’s game against the Green Bay Packers last week. What seemed to be nothing more than one player taking a stand has taken over the landscape of dialogue around the sports world.

Now, after starting the 49ers’ preseason finale against the San Diego Chargers, Kaepernick will likely take a back seat to Gabbert when the regular season comes calling. On the field, it’s the right decision — a decision that’s not rooted in anything he’s done off the field.

All the while, the controversy doesn’t seem close to dying down. That’s only magnified by the quarterback donning socks in practice depicting police as pigs (more on that here).

How will this play out during the regular season? Should he be called on to start, how will the quarterback be greeted on the road? Will he remain on the 49ers beyond final cuts? These are all questions we need to ask.

3. Dak Prescott was dazzling

It definitely came at a good time. This rookie fourth-round pick will now be relied on to continue his excellent performance into the regular season. Whether that happens is anyone’s guess.

What we do know is that Prescott was absolutely dominating during the preseason slate. When all was said and done, the Mississippi State product completed 78 percent of his passes for 454 yards with seven total touchdowns and zero picks.

If those numbers weren’t good enough, he actually led the Cowboys to a score in eight consecutive possessions at one point during the preseason. Magnifying this performance even more, Prescott played a ton against first-team defenses with Romo seeing limited action prior to his injury.

At the very least, it does appear that the Cowboys have their quarterback of the future. Let’s just hope for their sake, the future is this year.

4. Robert Griffin III might be back

Concern that Griffin III has struggled reading defenses surfaced prior to Thursday’s preseason finale. That’s fine and dandy. There’s some in the football world that will continue to be cynical about his ability to rebound from three disastrous seasons in D.C.

What we do know is that the former No. 2 overall pick was stellar throughout the entire preseason. Long touchdown passes to Terrelle Pryor and Josh Gordon, coupled with a near 60 percent completion rate, leads us to the conclusion. As does Griffin III’s 100.0 preseason quarterback rating.

It’s definitely going to be interesting to see how Griffin III performs to start the regular year. If what he’s done during the preseason is any indication, the embattled quarterback is set for a rebound campaign.

5. The Patriots could be fine without Tom Brady

Brady may have started New England’s preseason finale, but that was simply to get him some action before he serves a four-game suspension to start the season.

With Brady at the helm, New England put up six first quarter points. In total, Brady completed 16-of-26 passes for 166 yards with a score and a pick. All the while, short-term starter Jimmy Garoppolo was riding the pine.

This made sense for a number of reasons. First off, there was no reason for New England to risk Jimmy Garoppolo’s health. He’s proven as much as he could through three preseason games.

In fact, the third-year quarterback was pretty darn good. He completed 66.7 percent of his passes without an interception in 54 attempts. Those are some rock solid numbers right there.

6. Some reason for concern among NFL’s top contenders

We already know Minnesota is in a world of trouble now that Teddy is lost for the season. Missing Tom Brady for the first quarter of the year will also have an impact on the New England Patriots.

Outside of that, there surely seems to be more questions surrounding the league’s top teams than in past seasons.

The Pittsburgh Steelers played their starters sparingly during the preseason. What might normally be a good plan could come back to haunt them.

Le’Veon Bell is suspended for the first three games after violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Martavis Bryant is suspended the entire season for repeat violations of the same policy.

Did Pittsburgh do itself a disservice by resting Ben Roethlisberger, DeAngelo Williams and Antonio Brown for a vast majority of the exhibition slate?

Also a concern in Pittsburgh is the team’s backup quarterback situation. Landry Jones might have played well in its third preseason game, but the team remains unsettled there.

Moving to the NFC, there surely are some major concerns surrounding the Seattle Seahawks. Boasting one of the league’s wort offensive lines last season, Seattle lost two of its best starters along that unit in free agency.

Former Pro Bowler Russell Okung signed with the Denver Broncos while J.R. Sweezy inked a deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

7. Free agent signings already proving futile

When it comes to rookies, we need to wait a while to gauge how successful a pick might have been (more on that later). But when we look at free-agent signings around the NFL, it’s primarily about the now. If a veteran struggles to perform after signing a big-money deal, we must take note early.

When the New Orleans Saints signed tight end Coby Fleener to a five-year, $36 million deal, they threw many for a loop. Here’s a guy that put up less than 500 receiving yards for the Indianapolis Colts last season.

Now in his first summer of action with the Saints, things haven’t necessarily gone according to plan.

“The former Colts tight end hasn’t been reliable enough lately on catching passes. He also isn’t on the same page with Brees on some routes,” Larry Holder of Nola.com reported from Saints camp late last month. “Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but I feel like I’ve seen Josh Hill more involved in the passing game the last couple of practices.”

It’s not that Fleener can’t be a valuable member of this offense. Rather, it’s pretty alarming that he hasn’t found a way to connect with a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback in a tight end friendly offense.

With so many weapons at his disposal, one wonders whether Brees will simply look away from Fleener early and often this season. If so, the massive deal New Orleans inked Fleener to might prove to be a mistake.

On the defensive side, it’s predictable that the New York Giants’ signing of Janoris Jenkins has already proven to be questionable. The high-priced corner was beat on a simple route by New York Jets receiver Eric Decker last week.

It’s one of those plays that came to define Jenkins’ up-and-down tenure with the then St. Louis Rams.

Handing Jenkins a five-year, $62.5 million deal might have seemed ridiculous at the time. Now, heading into the regular season, Jenkins’ uneven preseason performance might prove that skepticism was justified.

These are just a couple of the big-money free agent signings that have proven to be questionable. It will be interesting to see how others perform early in the season.

8. Rookies impressing

On the other hand, when first-year players perform at a high level early, we must take note. We can talk about the Cowboy tandem of Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott, but that’s just playing into a reality we already knew existed.

Instead, let’s look at lesser prospects who have not been talked about quite as much nationally.

It has to start with New York Jets un-draft free agent Robby Anderson. The Temple product has been dazzling onlookers all preseason. He tallied 61 yards on two receptions, including a 44-yard touchdown against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday.

That brought Anderson’s four-game preseason total to 13 receptions, 264 yards and three scores. Even prior to what we saw in the finale, Jets’ coaches were praising the young receiver.

Staying at wide receiver, New Orleans Saints second-round pick Michael Thomas caught the attention of his team big time. It’s even gotten to the point where the Saints simply can’t afford to keep Thomas off the field.

That’s mighty impressive considering what they have ahead of the Ohio State product on the depth chart.

The stats don’t tell the entire story here. Instead, it’s about just how much the Saints used Thomas with the first team, especially in the red zone.

It might have been as much about giving him reps as anything else, but he’s impressed the team enough for us to believe the youngster will make an impact as a rookie.

On the defensive side of the ball, it’s been all about Minnesota Vikings second-round pick Mackensie Alexander. He posted two interceptions during the preseason. Interestingly enough, that’s two more than the corner tallied during his entire Clemson career.

What’s so impressive about Alexander’s performance is the fact that Minnesota has played him against front-line starters to an extent this summer. It’s in this that he’s impressed the team enough to potentially get a look in sub-packages as a rookie.

9. Broncos prove quarterback strategy failed

When the defending champs take to the field Week 1 against the Carolina Panthers, they will do so with an inexperienced quarterback under center. Not only that, said quarterback has not thrown a single regular season pass. This is nearly unprecedented in the modern history of the league.

While stopping short of saying Trevor Siemian can’t be a starter-caliber quarterback in the NFL, we must talk about just how poorly Denver handled its quarterback situation during the spring.

Here’s a team that didn’t want to get into a bidding war for Brock Osweiler. Considering how much the Houston Texans signed him for, that makes sense. Denver also can’t be blamed for watching Peyton Manning retire. That was completely out of the team’s control.

However, it’s decision to target and trade for Mark Sanchez has proven to be a complete and utter disaster.

It’s not as much about trading a conditional pick for Sanchez. Instead, it’s all about Denver putting all of its eggs in one basket. After all, the team was relying on a substandard veteran to win the starting job over two inexperienced options.

Through the preseason slate, it’s now readily apparent that this was a mistake. Sanchez was nowhere near as impressive as Siemian or rookie first-round pick Paxton Lynch.

Why didn’t the defending champs didn’t bring in another veteran option to compete with Sanchez? That’s our biggest question heading into Week 1.

10. Jared Goff’s struggles

Preseason struggles from a rookie quarterback. Raise your hand if you’ve seen that before. No one should be overly alarmed by what we’ve seen from this rookie No. 1 overall pick.

It is, however, a bit concerning that multiple rookie signal callers, Dak Prescott and Cody Kessler included, have looked better than Goff.

It’s also concering to know that Goff simply hasn’t been able to compete with a fledgling Case Keenum for the starting gig in Los Angeles. In fact, head coach Jeff Fisher says the rookie is currently No. 3 on the depth chart behind Sean Mannion (more on that here).

Overall, the former California standout simply hasn’t displayed the necessary pocket awareness and field vision to succeed in the NFL.

His numbers represented that fact to a T. The youngster completed 22-of-49 passes for 232 yards with two touchdowns, two interceptions and three fumbles. Ouch!