Factoid

24 August 2024

Tendency to sit on the bench rather than use expected regular players

I blame Sean McVay. He’s the one who started it. He was the first coach to say, “Let’s just not play any of our core players in the preseason,” and most of the rest of the league has gone with that model.

McVay argues that it’s better to use players in more controlled workouts and practices rather than putting them at risk in preseason games. He hasn’t sent his starting quarterback out for a single snap in a preseason game in the last seven years.

That’s pretty shocking considering that nearly 3 million tickets are sold for these games. And television executives are interested in having viewers watch their programs. Remarkably, McVay had the nerve to deviate from that course, despite being only 32 years old. (I believe McVay moved to the model of mothballing everyone completely in his second season.)

That’s the norm now. The norm is to use key players little or not at all in the preseason. You’d think Bryce Young, Will Levis and Deshaun Watson could use some playing time, but they’re not being used.

The following table shows the number of pass attempts by quarterbacks in the first two weeks of the preseason. Fourteen teams did not use their starter at all. The league average is 7 pass attempts for the projected starting quarterback.

For comparison, I listed the same stats from 10 years ago. This season, only one starter did not play in the first two weeks of preseason (Drew Brees). Quarterbacks this year averaged two and a half times as many pass attempts in their first two preseason games.

—Ian Allan