10 must-watch games on the NFL preseason schedule

If you didn’t watch Amazon's The Wheel of Time adaptation, you did yourself a favor. In the last episode of the first season, one of the main characters dies and then comes back to life about five minutes later. The story was good, but there were no stakes — it was, in a word, boring. 

You could say the same about preseason NFL football. It’s football, which is great, but there aren’t any stakes. That makes it boring. 

However, there are fans of TWoT in the first place because of the story. And in the NFL preseason, there are stories in spades. That’s where meaningless exhibition games become must-watch TV: It’s less about the development and more about the assessment, and this preseason is going to give us a pretty solid amount of meaningless football to assess.

1. Carolina Panthers vs. Arizona Cardinals (Hall of Fame Game)

• When: Aug. 6, 8 p.m. ET

On Aug. 6, you’re going to get to watch NFL football. You might watch for five minutes, or you might watch for a full three hours ... but you’re going to watch, because it’s NFL football. And luckily, there’s more to it than that. 

The Cardinals are in quarterback hell right now. Jacoby Brissett is probably going to be their starter, but he’s currently holding in to get a new contract. That leaves Gardner Minshew, Kedon Slovis and most importantly, 2026 draft pick Carson Beck on the depth chart.

The thing to remember is that the Hall of Fame game is an extra preseason game for the teams that play in it. That means they’re probably (read: definitely) not going to play any starters, which means that we’re going to get to watch Beck play football again. That’s entertainment, because he’s just as liable to throw an absolute missile as he is to throw a super terrible interception (think Jameis Winston, but not as egregious). You want to watch that. 

2. Arizona Cardinals vs. Las Vegas Raiders

• When: Aug. 13, 8 p.m. ET

Remember everything I just said about Beck? That applies to this game as well, but we’re also going to get to see No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza on the field for the first time. You’re going to want to watch that.

If things go right for the Raiders this season, Kirk Cousins will be their starting quarterback for the entire season, which means the month of August would be the only time we see Mendoza in game action all year. If he does something dumb, you’re going to want to be on the front lines — that way, you’ll be able to say, "Sure, he might be good, but remember when he moved off of his second read too quickly and threw an interception straight to Kei’Trel Clark? Oh, you don’t remember that? You must not know ball. It was a bad decision."

You have the opportunity to be on the ground floor. Don’t miss out.

3. Minnesota Vikings at New York Giants

• When Aug. 15, 1 p.m. ET

The Kyler Murray vs. J.J. McCarthy quarterback battle in Minnesota takes a backseat in this game. What we’ll be watching here is John Harbaugh in his debut with the Giants. 

From 2016 to 2023, Harbaugh’s Ravens went on a 24-game win streak in the preseason. You could argue that things really started to go south for both he and the team after that run came to an end. 

If Harbaugh's really serious about this new gig in New York, wouldn’t he want to start it off on the right foot by taking a meaningless game entirely too seriously? In 10 years, we’ll either look back at this game and say, ‘"We all should’ve known that the Giants were going to be good; remember when they sent the Vikings to hell in Harbaugh’s first preseason game?" Or, conversely: "That whole charade was doomed from the start. Remember when J.J. McCarthy threw for 300 yards in that one preseason game?"

This game will be a litmus test of the vibes for this era of Giants football.

4. Philadelphia Eagles at Baltimore Ravens

• When Aug. 15, 7 p.m. ET

Every one of the Eagles' preseason games is going to be interesting for a few reasons. The first is that it looks like Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee are actually competing for the QB2 job; I think everyone in the world (or at least everyone who cares about this stuff) thought that McKee had shown that he’s got the stuff, but apparently not. 

On top of that, it’s going to be the first time we’re seeing what a Sean Mannion offense will look like. Yes, it’s the preseason and everything is bare bones, but the bare bones of his offense are going to look drastically different than the bare bones of the Eagles’ offense over the past five years. That’ll be neat.

As for the Ravens, we’re going to see Diego Pavia get absolutely humbled by Vic Fangio. Again, yes, it’s a simplified Fangio scheme, but it really seems like that’ll be enough to crush the guy who said he was too good to win the Heisman. That’s always fun. 

5. Los Angeles Rams at Kansas City Chiefs

• When: Aug. 15, 4 p.m. ET

The Rams and the Raiders will be in similar spots this preseason, because they both drafted quarterbacks in the first round — and the best situation for both of them is for neither of those rookies to play meaningful snaps in 2026. It’s just for vastly different reasons.

For Mendoza, it’ll be best long-term for him to have that redshirt season. If Ty Simpson is playing for the Rams, on the other hand, that means Matthew Stafford isn’t on the field, and that means their Super Bowl season is in jeopardy.

My point is that these preseason games should be the only time we see Simpson until way down the road. As a football-viewing public, we’re pretty uninformed about what’s actually going on with quarterbacks lower on the depth chart. So we’re going to be using this incredibly small sample size to make some wild assumptions about what the Rams are going to look like once Stafford is gone. 

6. New York Jets at Pittsburgh Steelers

• When: Aug. 21, 7 p.m. ET

The Steelers' offensive line went through some big changes this offseason. With left guard Isaac Seumalo going to the Cardinals in free agency and left tackle Broderick Jones still dealing with a neck injury, the Steelers are moving Mason McCormick and Troy Fautano from the right side to the left. That means they’re going to be tossing Spencer Anderson to right guard, and they’ll be working on their first-round pick, Max Iheanachor, at right tackle.

The issue here is that Iheanachor is very much a developmental guy who would’ve been better off getting drafted by a team that didn’t need him to start right away. And any of these live-fire reps that he gets in the preseason are going to be massive for him. That, by itself, is going to be fun to watch. 

Then you bring in the Jets, who drafted David Bailey with the second overall pick. This will be New York's second preseason game, so there’s a good chance we’ll see a handful of snaps from those elite rookies. There’s a solid chance that we’ll get to see some Iheanachor-Bailey matchups, and someone is going to get exposed.

7. Atlanta Falcons at Indianapolis Colts

• When: Aug. 22, 1 p.m. ET

Anthony Richardson is still a Colt, and based on reports from Indy’s OTAs, it sounds like he and Riley Leonard are competing for the QB2 spot. With Daniel Jones still rehabbing from his Achilles injury, it’d be criminal for him to take a single preseason snap. 

That means we’re going to see a whole lot of Richardson and Leonard (and more Easton Stick than you want) in those games. If Leonard wins that competition, it opens up Richardson as a potential trade candidate leading into this fall's deadline.

If you’re a team sitting on a quarterback who doesn’t have a big contract, or you don’t have good depth at the position, you’ll probably want a developmental guy like Richardson. If you send a late-round pick to Indianapolis to get him, that means you won’t have to use a Day 1 or Day 2 pick to get a developmental quarterback in the draft. 

If that’s not super interesting to you, that’s perfectly understandable. But if you're into that type of thing, then get the popcorn. 

8. Washington Commanders at Detroit Lions

• When: Aug. 22, 12 p.m. ET

The Commanders have a lot to figure out this summer. They hired David Blough as their offensive coordinator this offseason, and he’s never called a game before. Any time you get to see a guy do a high-level job for the first time can be a lot of fun, even if there aren’t any stakes just yet.

And on defense, we’ll get a glimpse of what things are going to look like. Daronte Jones is their new defensive coordinator; he spent the last four years in Minnesota, and three of those were with Brian Flores. Is this defense going to look like that, or is it going to look like Quinn's units typically do? If you’re a Commanders fan, you probably don’t want another year of the latter. 

For the Lions, you’re going to be watching the running backs. They sent David Montgomery to the Texans at the beginning of free agency, which theoretically means Jahmyr Gibbs is going to live on the field. But we’ve never seen him be a bell cow kind of guy, and he’s been awesome when he shares the load. 

9. Chicago Bears at Cincinnati Bengals

• When: Aug. 22, 7 p.m. ET

Going into 2025, the Joe Burrow-led Bengals were 1-4 in Week 1 games. So last year, Zac Taylor decided to give the starters more playing time in the preseason in order to get them off to a better start.

It worked, and it didn’t work. Cincy beat the Browns in the season opener, but they also only had 141 total yards of offense, and the final score was 17-16. You’ve got to think that they’re going to run that plan back again this season. 

All that to say: This game is going to be a premier offense playing more than a handful of drives against a bunch of backups. You’ll want to watch that. 

10. Kansas City Chiefs at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• When: Aug. 22, 7:30 p.m. ET

The Chiefs' schedule is set up for Patrick Mahomes to miss the month of September. They have the early Week 5 bye, and their first four games are against Denver, Indianapolis, Miami and Las Vegas. It’s a bad idea to test Mahomes' surgically repaired knee against the Broncos’ pass rush, and you can probably win the other three games with a backup quarterback. 

It’s more than likely that Kansas City's backup will be Justin Fields, but if he goes out and lays an egg as a passer (which we know he’s capable of), then Andy Reid might have to pivot. This preseason game against the Buccaneers is going to be a pretty solid indicator of whether the next man up is going to be Chris Oladokun or rookie Garrett Nussmeier.

Nussmeier was talked about like a potential second- or third-round talent going into the draft, but there was some medical stuff that caused him to slide all the way to the seventh. If he has a good showing against a simplified Todd Bowles defense, it would go a long way towrad giving Reid the confidence that Nussmeier could pull out a win or two against the Dolphins or the Raiders.

The Chiefs can’t afford to drop those games, but they really can’t afford a bum-legged Mahomes for an entire season. 

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow