Hey there football fans! Here are five things you need to know to begin your Thursdays:
Chad Henne will start the Jaguars' third preseason game. This will come at the expense of Blake Bortles.
After struggling most of last season and earning the 27th highest quarterback grade of 69.2, Bortles entered the preseason needing to improve quickly. Throughout the first two preseason games both backup Chad Henne and third-string quarterback Brandon Allen have performed better than Bortles. In their second preseason game Allen, competing against second and third-team defenses, earned the highest quarterback grade among the trio at 83.2 overall and Henne was solid earning a 72.6 overall, compared to Bortles who graded poorly earning a 52.7 grade.
Through two preseason games Henne ranks second among 80 qualifying quarterbacks in adjusted completion percentage at 87.5 percent and also ranks second in passer rating from a clean pocket at 143.9.
Donald Penn has ended his holdout. He returns in good faith to the team without a new contract.
Penn joined the Raiders in 2014 and has ranked in the top 12 among offensive tackles each season since. In 2016, Penn’s PFF overall grade of 86.3 ranked 12th of 76 qualifying tackles.
Penn was one of only four offensive tackles to allow just one sack, while playing more than 350 pass blocking snaps in 2016. He surrendered just 28 total pressures on his 621 pass-blocking snaps, giving him a pass-blocking efficiency (the PFF metric that measures pressure allowed on per snap basis with weighting towards sacks) of 96.6, good for fifth among offensive tackles.
TE Jordan Reed has returned to practice. He has been inactive through the preseason thus far.
Reed is arguably one of the best tight ends in football, and over the last two years he has produced PFF overall grades of 87.6 and 86.0, ranking fourth and sixth in the league, respectively. Reed ranked fourth among tight ends in 2016 with 1.97 yards per route run and dropped just one of 67 catchable targets in 2016, giving him the lowest drop rate (1.49) of any tight end.
Reed is a vital part of the Washington offense, and has built impressive chemistry with Kirk Cousins over the last two seasons. Reed has seen 18.1% of all Cousins’ targets since 2015, and when targeting him, Cousins has posted a passer rating of 124.0, the second-highest mark among the league’s tight ends with at least 120 targets.
While he has been dangerous on a lot of routes, he has been most impressive on post routes over the last two years. On his 14 targets on post routes, Reed has tallied 13 receptions for 276 yards, 3 touchdowns, and generated a perfect passer rating of 158.3.
Jordan Matthews has returned to practice. He missed a little more than a week with a chip fracture to his sternum.
The Bills new weapon led the Eagles in every PFF signature receiving stat category last season. He was one of only two receivers to do that in 2016, along with Seattle’s Doug Baldwin.
Matthews has had a lot of his production come from the slot. His 198 receptions while lined up in the slot is second in the NFL since entering the league in 2014. His target percentage from the slot was 23.4 percent, seventh in the league among wide receivers in 2016 and highest of his career.
DeShone Kizer will start Cleveland's third preseason game. He is competing with Brock Oswieler for the starting job.
Kizer started his career with a bang in the Browns first preseason game against the Saints, earning the third-highest quarterback grade of the week at 83.0 overall while Osweiler struggled in that game earning a grade of just 49.8.
Both quarterbacks struggled in the Browns most recent game against the Giants with Kizer ranking just 73rd out of 76 qualifiers for the week with a grade of 41.0. Osweiler earned a grade of 53.4 and ranked 51st.
While under pressure, Kizer has cleary been the better quarterback through two preseason games. His 109.5 passer rating under pressure ranks 12th among qualifiers while Osweiler’s 39.6 passer rating ranks 60th.
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