Every year there are players that have great preseasons as far as we can tell who get cut, and those who seemingly struggle but make the team. Fans love to explain this with unsubstantiated nonsense; a player has blackmail material, a coach is too loyal or not objective enough, weird biases based on background or schools, and a lot of speculation about financial motives.
The simple and obvious explanation is the public only sees the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the preseason. For every public walkthrough there are many more that happen behind closed doors, plus the film and whiteboard study in the position group rooms, plus medicals, plus weight room, condition and nutrition data, plus the prior scouting evals by the front office, plus a player's attitude and the team chemistry angle. The handful of snaps that a player shows in a meaningless preseason game is not going to win or lose the job when compared to the thousands of other data points the team has about a player while working closely with them over 3+ months. The actual benefit to a player putting good snaps on tape in the preseason is that when they get cut then other teams without all that info will be more likely to give them a look.
The real takeaways you can have as a fan are the depth chart and when players play. Cody Thompson didn't have a loud preseason, but he was consistently third or fourth on the depth chart and got snaps with the 1s when Lockett and Metcalf were sitting. As a result, it's not surprising at all that he made the team over guys who had flashier performances and much better PFF grades.
The simple and obvious explanation is the public only sees the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the preseason. For every public walkthrough there are many more that happen behind closed doors, plus the film and whiteboard study in the position group rooms, plus medicals, plus weight room, condition and nutrition data, plus the prior scouting evals by the front office, plus a player's attitude and the team chemistry angle. The handful of snaps that a player shows in a meaningless preseason game is not going to win or lose the job when compared to the thousands of other data points the team has about a player while working closely with them over 3+ months. The actual benefit to a player putting good snaps on tape in the preseason is that when they get cut then other teams without all that info will be more likely to give them a look.
The real takeaways you can have as a fan are the depth chart and when players play. Cody Thompson didn't have a loud preseason, but he was consistently third or fourth on the depth chart and got snaps with the 1s when Lockett and Metcalf were sitting. As a result, it's not surprising at all that he made the team over guys who had flashier performances and much better PFF grades.
