Ranking the debut of each rookie quarterback, plus NFL preseason winners and losers from Week 1

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Welcome to the Monday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!

The first week of the preseason is officially in the books, and after watching 16 games over four straight days, I can unequivocally say that this was the greatest weekend of preseason football in history: There was a 70-YARD FIELD GOAL, a 100-yard kickoff return by a Patriots rookie, and Shedeur Sanders might already be a Hall of Famer.

We'll be going almost all in on Week 1 of the preseason in today's newsletter: Not only do we have some winners and losers, but we broke down how all the top rookie quarterbacks played. Also, I will be breaking down Cam Little's 70-yard field goal because that was arguably the most exciting play in preseason history.

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1. NFL preseason: Winners and losers of Week 1

As everyone knows, you can't have a week of NFL action without having winners and losers, so we have some winners and losers from the first week of the preseason. Tyler Sullivan came up with this week's list and we're going to check out part of his list below:

Winners

Giants GM Joe Schoen. Schoen arguably has one of the warmest seats for a general manager in the NFL entering the 2025 season, but he may end up saving his job thanks to his pair of first-round rookies. ... In the Giants preseason opener against the Bills, both Abdul Carter and Jaxson Dart flashed. Starting with Carter, he played just six plays on the afternoon, but made the most of it. Of those six snaps, three were pass-rushing snaps. On all three of those snaps, he applied pressures. Meanwhile, Dart had a far longer leash in his preseason debut and was just as impressive, completing 12 of his 19 passes for 154 yards and a touchdown, while adding 24 yards rushing.
TreyVeyon Henderson. You couldn't have asked for a better start to your NFL career than what TreVeyon Henderson did on Friday night. New England's second-round rookie took the game's opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown, weaving around Commanders defenders en route to the end zone. (You can see the play here.)

Losers

Kyler Murray. The Cardinals QB didn't instill a ton of confidence for an Arizona breakout during one moment of their preseason opener. In the early minutes of the first quarter, the Cardinals quarterback rolled out to his left on a first-and-10 play and threw a lame duck pass directly to a Chiefs defender for an interception. (You can see the ugly play here.)
Bengals defense. The Philadelphia Eagles reserves lit up Cincinnati's starting defense. Backup quarterback Tanner McKee led scoring drives on the Eagles first two possessions of the night, including a nine-play, 75-yard touchdown drive on Philly's first possession of the game. He finished completing 20 of his 25 passes for 252 yards and two touchdowns. While the Cincy starters weren't out there for all of that production, they were for at least two drives during which they surrendered 10 points.

If you want to see Tyler's full list of winners and losers, be sure to click here.

2. Ranking the preseason debut of every rookie quarterback who played

The first week of the preseason can sometimes be kind of boring, but it wasn't this year, and that's mostly because we got to see ELEVEN different rookie quarterbacks make their debut over the weekend.

If you didn't get to watch every rookie quarterback play, don't worry, we have you covered. Tyler Sullivan watched every snap from all 11 quarterbacks and then decided to rank how each of them played.

Here's what Sullivan had to say about Shedeur Sanders, Cam Ward and Tyler Shough, who finished second, fifth and seventh in this ranking.

Browns 30-10 over Panthers: Shedeur Sanders finishes 14 of 23 passing for 128 yards and two touchdowns. The Colorado quarterback got the start for the Browns in their preseason opener and played essentially three quarters, heading to the bench after leading a touchdown drive with just under four minutes to play in the third. In that time, he certainly played well enough to warrant possibly moving up the depth chart. Sanders showed a strong ability rolling out to both his left and right throughout the evening, including during his first touchdown throw of the game. He rolled out left, got his feet set and delivered a dime to Kaden Davis for the score, threading the ball between multiple defenders. (You can see the throw from Sanders here.)
Buccaneers 29-7 over Titans: Cam Ward finishes 5 of 8 for 67 yards. Ward did seem to settle in after an opening three-and-out. During his second and final series of the night, he orchestrated an 11-play, 65-yard touchdown drive where his budding chemistry with top wideout Calvin Ridley flashed. The two connected on all three of their passes for 50 yards on the scoring drive.
Chargers 27-13 over Saints: Tyler Shough finishes 15 of 22 for 165 yards and one touchdown with one interception. The second-round rookie was the second quarterback up in the preseason opener against the Chargers after Spencer Rattler got the start. Shough came in and was able to lead New Orleans on its first scoring drive of the day, marching 52 yards on 10 plays to set up a 31-yard field goal. However, Shough and the offense went three-and-out on the next possession, and then the rookie threw a pick-six where corner Eric Rogers jumped the route on a throw intended for Dante Pettis. (You can see Rogers' TD here.) ... Shough did rally on the ensuing possession after the pick, uncorking a 54-yard touchdown pass to Mason Tipton. (We've got the clip of the TD here.)

If you want to check out Tyler's full ranking of the 11 rookie QB performances, you can do that here.

3. Jaguars kicker smashes 70-yard field goal: 3 things to know about Cam Little's improbable kick

I'm not saying Cam Little should win the MVP award this year for a preseason kick, but the NFL might want to think about giving it to him after he smashed a 70-yard field goal over the weekend. The kick went down just before halftime on Saturday night in the Jaguars' 31-25 loss to the Steelers. If you have not seen the kick yet, please stop what you're doing and go here, so you can watch it now. If you have seen the kick, please feel free to watch it again. And also, here's a sideline angle of the kick you probably haven't seen yet, so you can watch that one.

Here are three things to know about Little's big boot:

Little won't get his name in the NFL record book. Unfortunately for Little, preseason kicks DON'T count in the NFL record book, which means the official record for longest field goal still belongs to Justin Tucker, who hit a 66-yard kick back in 2021.
It was the first 70-yard field goal in any game in the history of football. The first American football game was played in 1869 and in the 156 years since then, no kicker had ever made a 70-yard field goal in a game until Little came along. The previous mark for longest kick ever at any level was held by Abilene Christian University's kicker Ove Johansson, who hit a 69-yarder all the way back in 1976. If you're a "pics or it didn't happen" type of person, you can see the footage of that college kick here.
Three of the five longest field goals in NFL history have now come in the preseason. NFL coaches don't really have anything to lose during the preseason, so they'll regularly send their kickers out for long field goal attempts. Due to that fact, three of the five longest NFL field goals ever have come in the preseason. Besides Little's kick, Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey hit a 66-yarder during the 2024 preseason and former Broncos kicker Ola Kimrin hit a 65-yarder during the 2002 preseason (Kimrin didn't even make the team that year). Aubrey also hit a 65-yarder in the regular season last year and combined with Tucker's 66-yarder, those are the only five kicks in NFL history from 65 yards or longer.

As the unofficial kicking guru here at CBS Sports, I have more on Little's amazing kick and you can read my full story here, which includes the fact that a high school kicker once hit a 68-YARD FIELD GOAL.

Cam Little stole the show from Travis Hunter, who had an impressive rookie debut for Jacksonville. Hunter played both ways, and we went into detail about his performance here.

4. Lions and Falcons agree to end preseason game early after brutal injury to Detroit safety

The Lions and Falcons only played three quarters of football during their preseason game over the weekend, and that's because they decided to end the game early after Lions safety Morice Norris suffered a brutal injury.

Here are three things to know:

Norris was injured on the first play of the fourth quarter. The injury happened after the Lions safety went in for a tackle on Falcons running back Nathan Carter. Norris' head snapped back after his facemask hit Carter's right leg. Norris appeared to lose consciousness on the field and the game was stopped for 20 minutes so medical personnel could tend to him.
Falcons only took one more snap in the game. After Norris was taken off the field, the Falcons took one more snap and then just let the clock run. At that point, there was still 12:43 left in the fourth quarter, but the snap after Norris' injury ended up being the final one of the game. With time still left on the clock, Lions players and Falcons players made a circle at midfield to pray for Norris (and the clock ran as they did this). You can see the full video here.
Norris offered a positive update on Sunday. Norris had to be taken to an Atlanta hospital on Friday night, but by Sunday, he was healthy enough to post on social media. "I'm all good man don't stress it appreciate all the check ins and love." That's definitely the kind of update you want to see after a situation like this.

If you want to read the full details on the Norris situation, we've got that here. According to Lions head coach Dan Campbell, Norris is currently in concussion protocol and doing "good."

The Lions ended up winning the shortened game, 17-10.

5. Titanic collapse: How Tennessee went from the AFC's No. 1 seed to the No. 1 pick in just three years

With Cam Ward making his debut over the weekend, Jordan Dajani decided to take a deep dive into how the Titans even ended up landing the No. 1 overall pick this year. Back in 2021, the Titans finished with the No. 1 OVERALL SEED IN THE AFC, and just four years laters, they finished with the worst record in the NFL.

So how did they fall from grace so quickly? Dajani broke things down.

Playoff loss to the Bengals was the beginning of the end. On the first play from scrimmage, Ryan Tannehill threw an interception to Jessie Bates. It was the first of three interceptions Tannehill would end up throwing, which directly led to the 19-16 loss Tennessee suffered. The Titans had found themselves on the losing end despite a heroic effort from the defense, which sacked Burrow nine times -- tying a single-game NFL playoff record.
Trading A.J. Brown at the 2022 NFL Draft only made things worse. During the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, the Titans traded their No. 1 wide receiver to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for the No. 18 and No. 101 overall picks. (It should be noted that Mike Vrabel didn't want to trade Brown and that general manager Jon Robinson had said he was trying to get an extension done.)
Titans drafted Treylon Burks to replace A.J. Brown. With the No. 18 overall pick the Titans received in exchange for Brown, they drafted wide receiver Treylon Burks out of Arkansas (Burks is no longer with the team after getting cut last week).
Bad drafting. Jon Robinson made some horrific moves. His final three first-round picks were Isaiah Wilson, Caleb Farley and Burks, and they were all massive busts. In fact, Wilson and Farley played a combined 13 games for the Titans.

It's really incredible that a team could fall so hard, so fast, but the Titans did. Dajani's full breakdown is definitely worth reading, and you can check it out here.

6. Extra points: Eagles star offensive lineman carted off field

It was a busy weekend in the NFL, and since it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.

Landon Dickerson dealing with possible leg injury. The Eagles offensive lineman suffered an injury to his right leg during practice on Sunday and had to be carted off the field. It's not clear how serious the injury is, but losing the Pro Bowl left guard for any length of time would be a devastating blow for Philadelphia. We've got more on Dickerson's injury here.
Colts to start Daniel Jones this week. The Colts will be playing the Packers this week and the starting QB for that game will be Jones, who came off the bench during Week 1 of the preseason after Anthony Richardson got injured. When it comes to winning the job, this will likely be Jones' final big chance to put himself in the driver's seat. If you want more details on the Colts' QB plans, we've got that here.
Mike Tomlin reveals when he knew Aaron Rodgers was going to sign. Before Aaron Rodgers signed with the Steelers, there were a lot of fans panicking in Pittsburgh because they were worried that he might not actually join the team. Tomlin never panicked though, and that's because he knew BEFORE THE DRAFT that Rodgers was going to eventually sign with the Steelers. Tomlin shared that detail in a recent interview, and you can check out his full comments here.
Pete Carroll not mad at Geno Smith for flipping the bird at a fan. Before the Raiders played the Seahawks on Friday night, Geno Smith flipped off a Seahawks fan who was carrying a sign that said, "BIGGER BUST -- GENO OR JAMARCUS RUSSELL?" Pete Carroll had no problem with what Geno did. "Did you see what the sign said?" Carroll said when asked about the situation. "Next question." If you want to see a picture of Geno flipping the bird, you can do that here. Carroll and Smith didn't quite get revenge on the Seahawks, as the Raiders ended up tying Seattle, 23-23.