Preseason Week 1 begins Thursday with the first live quarterback auditions of the NFL calendar, and Deshaun Watson is at the center of it. He will start for the Cleveland Browns on Saturday against the Bears, his first game action in nearly two years.
That alone makes the preseason football schedule worth watching now. Teams usually hide their starters in August, but Watson’s snap count carries extra weight because Cleveland is still sorting out its QB picture and the Browns have already said Shedeur Sanders will get the start in Week 2 of the preseason.
The opening week also puts J.J. McCarthy back in the frame. The Vikings could give him extended playing time against the Giants on Saturday, a chance to build on 10 career starts while the club continues to judge how much more it needs to see. For a young QB, those extra series are not just reps; they are the only kind that can settle a depth chart before September begins.
What makes Watson’s start harder to read is the way the conversation around him has split. A league insider recently described him as likely to win the Browns job, but Todd Monken has not shut the door on anyone yet. That leaves Saturday as more than a tune-up. It is the first test of whether Cleveland is ready to treat Watson as the answer or just the current leading option.
There is a reason preseason games can still matter even when the league treats them like warmups. Live games give coaches a chance to watch timing, protection and decision-making under pressure, and the first full slate of action since January will do that for a long list of quarterbacks. Fernando Mendoza could face the Cardinals on Thursday, Carson Beck already flashed in last week’s Hall of Fame Game, and Ty Simpson was drafted in the first round this year by the Rams.
The rest is the part fans usually forget until the game is on. Most teams will sit starters, live preseason games are subject to local and other geographic blackouts, and NFL+ requires a subscription. Even so, the opening week still shapes the rest of August because it is where teams start turning practice habits into something they can actually trust. Watson’s first snaps in nearly two years will matter for Cleveland, and McCarthy’s next series could matter just as much for Minnesota.
The bigger question now is not whether Preseason Week 1 will produce surprises. It is whether the early snaps will be enough to settle jobs that have been discussed all summer, or whether the answers will stay messy until the preseason runs deeper.
