Congratulations, you've made it to the start of the 2026 NFL season! Over the next three days, each NFL team will take part in Week 1 of the preseason, with six games on the Thursday night slate.
Thursday night's games are particularly interesting. Joe Burrow and the rest of the Cincinnati Bengals' starters will get some work in against the visiting Detroit Lions. Aaron Rodgers, who will not see the field, will face his former team for the last time (barring a Super Bowl matchup) when the Pittsburgh Steelers host the Green Bay Packers. That game will also feature a developing position battle between quarterbacks Will Howard and Drew Allar. Speaking of quarterbacks, Fernando Mendoza will make his NFL debut tonight when the Raiders host the Cardinals.
Tonight's matchups also include the head coaching debut for Las Vegas' Klint Kubiak, the first game for Robert Saleh as the Tennessee Titans' new coach, Mike McCarthy's first game as Pittsburgh's coach and Mike McDaniel's first game as the Los Angeles Chargers' offensive coordinator.
Keep up with all of the action by following along in our live blog below, where we'll be providing updates, highlights and analysis throughout the night.
Thursday
Lions at Bengals, 7 p.m.
Packers at Steelers, 7 p.m.
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots, 7:30 p.m.
Chargers at Houston Texans, 8 p.m.
Arizona Cardinals at Las Vegas Raiders, 8 p.m.
Titans at San Francisco 49ers, 9 p.m.
Friday
Miami Dolphins at Washington Commanders, 7 p.m.
Denver Broncos at Atlanta Falcons, 7 p.m.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New York Jets, 7 p.m.
Saturday
Carolina Panthers at Buffalo Bills, 1 p.m.
Cleveland Browns at Chicago Bears, 1 p.m.
Minnesota Vikings at New York Giants, 1 p.m.
Jacksonville Jaguars at New Orleans Saints, 4 p.m.
Los Angeles Rams at Kansas City Chiefs, 4 p.m.
Philadelphia Eagles at Baltimore Ravens, 7 p.m.
Dallas Cowboys at Seattle Seahawks, 8 p.m.
Looks like Fernando Mendoza's NFL debut won't be short. Expect a decent amount of work tonight for the No. 1 overall pick. Tonight will be Mendoza's first live reps since he led Indiana win over Miami in the CPF National Championship.
Steelers QBs Drew Allar and Will Howard are competing to be the No. 3 QB in Pittsburgh.Steelers training camp overreactions: Drew Allar outplaying Will Howard? Is Rico Dowdle the new RB1?, but Will Howard's work ethic might be enough to help him close the gap.
Specifically, I want to see if Howard can make quicker decisions and have more success downfield. Regarding Allar, I'll be curious to see if he continues to take as many chances during live reps as he has in practice.
Bears fans will have to wait for Week 1 to see their QB1 play this year, unless they opt to play as the Bears in Madden (which had Williams on their cover for this year).
Bears coach Ben Johnson explained his reasoning regarding Williams not playing in the preseason on Thursday.
While he had only a handful of preseason reps during his first several seasons in Cincinnati, Burrow is slated to start tonight's game as he and the Bengals look to get off to a fast start this season. The Bengals have been slow-starting team throughout Burrow's time in Cincinnati, so the thought is that some preseason work for the starters might help the team get out of the gates quicker.
Thursday will be Klint Kubiak's debut as an NFL head coach, Robert Saleh's first game as the Titans' head coach, Mike McCarthy's first game as the Steelers' head coach and Mike McDaniel's first game as the Chargers' offensive coordinator.
Ironically, McCarthy's first game as Pittsburgh's coach will be against the Packers, where he coached from 2006-18.
Cardinals fans will have to wait at least another week to see Carson Beck. Beck won't play tonight as he is dealing with a rib injury that was sustained during last week's Hall of Fame Game. The Cardinals don't believe that the injury is serious.
Beck was impressive in his NFL debut. He went 15 of 19 for 188 yards with a TD and no interceptions.
It doesn't appear that Aaron Rodgers will face his former team tonight. He arrived at Acrisure Stadium roughly 3.5 hours before kickoff but has spent most of his time on the field catching up with friends.
Assuming Rodgers doesn't go, Mason Rudolph will start for Pittsburgh, followed by rookie Drew Allar and Will Howard. Tonight will be Allar and Howard's NFL debuts; Howard missed all of his rookie preseason after sustaining an injury during the early portion of training camo.
