NFL Power Rankings: Biggest risers and fallers after Preseason Week 1
Who overreacts to what happens in the NFL preaseason? Definitely not us...Football is finally back after a six-month hiatus and with everything that happened over the course of the offseason on paper, we now finally have some actual football to evaluate.
Well, sort of.
The preseason is not going to give us a clear enough picture of what every team is going to look like in the regular season, but it can certainly get fans excited about certain players or teams. We're going to update our 2024 NFL power rankings anyway, giving a fresh perspective on everything that went down in Week 1 of the 2024 preseason. Which teams are rising and falling even just with a short sample from the weekend of preseason games?
2024 NFL Power Rankings after Preseason Week 1
32. Las Vegas Raiders
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce was pleased with what he saw from his quarterbacks in the Raiders’ preseason debut against the Minnesota Vikings.
There are some who think the combination of Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell could be the worst in the NFL.
"Yeah, it was good. Good reps there for Aidan. Backed up, got us drove all the way down the length of the field. It was close there, was thinking about going for the fourth down, negative play, we kicked a field goal. And then Gardner came in, three good drives. Really for both quarterbacks, all four possessions led to points on the board for the Raiders. That was positive. There's a lot of things obviously we can learn from it."
Antonio Pierce (via Raiders PR)
The Raiders are going to be one of the most interesting teams to watch this coming season considering how they rallied and played well after Josh McDaniels was fired last year.
31. Carolina Panthers
The Panthers’ preseason opener was a massive disappointment from an outside perspective. Can anyone explain why Bryce Young didn’t play in this game? Are the Panthers really preserving his health right now instead of giving him valuable reps?
I am guessing we’ll see Young at some point in the preseason, but he needs these game situations to be able to show actual improvement. The pressure is on the Panthers and Bryce Young this year thanks to the fact that Frank Reich and his staff were absolutely awful last year. The new coaching staff, led by head coach Dave Canales, gave all the reps in the first preseason game to Jake Luton and Jack Plummer.
What in the world? This team is not good enough to sideline Bryce Young for preseason reps. And if he’s dealing with an injury, there’s even more cause for concern.