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Caleb Williams spent his Saturday running through 60-plus plays in a private morning workout at Soldier Field last weekend. A few hours later, paying customers watched his backups on the Chicago Bears play the Cleveland Browns.
If there is a clear explanation of what preseason football has become, this is it. The work that the Bears considered to be most valuable was closed to the public. The product it sold was the audition.
Preseason football has developed into a class system. Established stars increasingly receive their most valuable work in private, controlled environments. Secure starters play sparingly, if at all. Players with the smallest contracts and the least job security supply most of the snaps, contact and physical risk in games from which the league continues to profit.
To fans all across the country, preseason is packaged and sold as NFL games. For the majority of those participating, it is a job interview with tackling.
That the Bears essentially chose a private practice over that afternoon’s game as the best preparation for their franchise quarterback isn’t surprising. Teams across the league are making those same decisions all this month.
As the Browns and Buffalo Bills prepared to meet Saturday, both head coaches agreed the starters wouldn’t play much, if at all, in the game because of the work they got in during Thursday’s joint practice. This comes after Josh Allen played only 15 snaps in the Bills’ preseason opener — which is 15 more than he took in last year’s entire preseason.
We’ve come a long way from the NFL’s barnstorming tours of 50 years ago, when teams would play six preseason games at various stops across the country, including some neutral fields.
The value has migrated. The games are becoming less useful to the players who fans want to watch and more important to the ones most fans don’t know.
For players fighting for jobs, it creates a cruel conundrum: The same game that can launch a career can also end one.
Houston quarterback Graham Mertz tore his ACL in the Texans’ opener and is out for the season. He has never appeared in a regular-season game and was competing for a backup job.
#Texans third quarterback Graham Mertz walks off field after grabbing knee following scramble @KPRC2 pic.twitter.com/JgU5fbjvmI
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) August 14, 2026
Bilhal Kone, a sixth-round rookie last year for the Ravens, tore ligaments in his knee in his first preseason game, wiping out his entire rookie season. He’s back on the field this year trying to claim a roster spot, resuming the audition that was interrupted a year ago.
Browns cornerback Michael Coats Jr., an undrafted rookie from West Virginia, intercepted a pass against Chicago last weekend and broke up another, strengthening his argument for a roster spot. Then he left the same game with an ankle injury.
Thankfully, Coats was fine. He returned to practice for the Browns this week.
Risk is inseparable from football. Players are susceptible during joint practices, too, but controlled environments at least provide teams more opportunities to mitigate it. The NFL’s most secure players usually spend preseason weekends standing safely along the sideline while the players trying to join them get carried off.
To players at the bottom of the roster, a fourth quarter in August may be the most financially important football they ever play. They need film for the other 31 teams in case they get cut next weekend, or for other employers, such as the United Football League, if it doesn’t work out in the NFL.
Under the collective bargaining agreement, first-year players receive a $2,000 weekly per diem during training camp and the preseason. Veterans receive $3,500 per week. Teams also provide housing, meals and some travel expenses. There is no additional preseason game check added because one player takes 50 snaps while a starter watches from the sideline.
A first-year player receives the same $2,000 weekly per diem whether he never enters a preseason game or plays every snap. Make the active roster, however, and the minimum active-roster salary for a player with no credited seasons is $885,000. For players trying to cross that financial divide, the preseason opportunity is enormously valuable. The compensation for assuming the additional risk is not.
To be fair, this isn’t unpaid labor. They share in league revenue. Those injured while performing are generally entitled to medical care and may have salary rights for the season of the injury. Some qualify for future injury-protection benefits. All of that is important context.
But split contracts can reduce what an injured player receives. An injury provides some financial and medical protection, but it does not guarantee continued employment. Teams can waive injured players. If a player clears waivers, he generally reverts to injured reserve unless the sides reach a settlement.
The CBA can require teams to cover medical care and preserve some salary. It cannot restore the opportunity that disappeared. It cannot give Mertz back a year of development or assure Kone a roster spot when he is healthy. The players supplying most of the public product this month are often the ones with the smallest contracts and the least protection against what losing their opportunity will mean.
The answer isn’t to eliminate preseason. Abolishing the games would eliminate valuable auditions for players who need them — those same players who are least equipped to absorb the consequences if they’re injured.
The answer is to pay and protect those players like the performers they are. Players who appear in preseason games should receive additional game compensation beyond their training-camp weekly stipend. A player suffering a season-ending preseason injury should be guaranteed at least the full active-roster minimum rather than a reduced split salary.
It’s fairly revealing that NFL teams are deciding their most valuable preparation occurs somewhere other than the game they’re selling to the public.
The stars prepare on practice fields while the customers get the logo, the uniforms and the players trying desperately to earn the right to wear them again when the games begin to count.
Preseason is not meaningless. It’s just most meaningful to the people with the least power to survive it.
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