Preseason snaps have been one of the great battles for Falcons fans since time immemorial…or at least since 2006, when this website came to life. If starters play a lot and get hurt, there’s significant blowback. If starters don’t play at all and the team comes out flat in Week 1, there’s significant blowback. Everyone wants a different outlook, but we’re united in one thing: We want preseason to set the Falcons up for a successful season, and we want the injuries during the summer to be limited.
The dissatisfaction with how the Falcons coaching staff has handled preseason goes back years. The team has won just one of their last eight Week 1 contests—that would be in 2023, against the Panthers—and light usage of starters in preseason has been identified as a reason for slow starts by a significant portion of the fanbase. That criticism was particularly loud for Raheem Morris, who stood fast in both of his seasons in Atlanta on not playing his critical starters at all in preseason, prioritizing good health over live game reps. I have been receptive to the argument that starters should play minimally unless they’re young players in need of reps or struggling starters who have something to work on, but slow starts and seemingly unprepared teams in recent seasons have made that a challenging position to defend.
Kevin Stefanski, unlike Raheem Morris, figures to play his starters some in preseason. In Cleveland, Stefanski has typically sat crucial starters for the first two games and used the first 20-30 snaps of the preseason finale as a tune-up, which means starters largely stick to practices but get some reps before the season begins. Morris, of course, rarely if ever played most of his starters; Michael Penix Jr., Drake London, and Bijan Robinson logged a combined zero preseason snaps in 2025. That approach will be closer to what we saw from Arthur Smith in 2023, when he played starters 10-15 snaps in the preseason finale, than it is to what Smith did in 2021 or what Morris did in 2024 and 2025.
This approach is of particular interest at quarterback because it may give us an idea of the pecking order early. Joe Flacco, who began the year as Cleveland’s starting quarterback in 2025, finally appeared in the preseason finale and played 17 snaps. In 2023, Deshaun Watson played the first quarter and then hit the bench; the Browns held out Watson in the 2024 preseason as he returned from a 2023 season where he only managed six games owing to injury. Whoever starts the preseason finale is, in all likelihood, the Week 1 starter for the Falcons; whether Tua Tagovailoa or Penix gets on the field at all in the first two preseason games will be as telling as anything the coaching staff actually says about how close their competition is. If this truly will be a down-to-the-wire battle for the starting job, meanwhile, chances are you’re going to see a lot of Trevor Siemian and Jack Strand in the first two preseason games.
This may provide early clues at other positions, as well. If Christian Harris and Kendal Daniels are both healthy and, say, Daniels winds up playing heavy snaps in the first two games while Harris sits, it’s a pretty clear indication Harris is running as the starter. While rookies may get reps because the coaching staff believes they need them, complicating that picture a bit, the preseason playing time for Daniels, cornerback Avieon Terrell, and wide receiver Zachariah Branch will all be worth watching closely.
The short of it is that if Stefanski follows his own history, as I expect he will, the first two preseason games will be extended auditions for reserves, young players, and roster hopefuls, while the last game will be the regular season tune-up for starters and then the last two-to-three quarters will be a final chance for those fighting for roster spots and practice squad slots to make their case. While we should take preseason snaps with a decent-sized dose of sodium, the hope is that it will contribute to a more successful campaign than we’ve seen from the Falcons these past eight seasons.