The one name to carry out of Thursday night is Tyjae Spears, whose fantasy stock came out of the Titans' preseason win over the 49ers pointing up. Not because of a highlight reel. Because of usage, and what usage in August usually whispers about September.
I want to be straight about what I have and what I don't. I don't have the full snap count or the carry-by-carry in front of me yet, so I'm not going to pretend I watched every rep and counted every touch. What I have is the read coming out of Thursday: Spears did enough that people who spend all summer building boards started moving him up. That's a small thing. Small things in August are still things.
Why Tyjae Spears fantasy stock is moving now
Here is the context that makes it interesting. Spears came into the league in 2023 and has spent his whole career as the other guy in somebody else's backfield, first as the change of pace behind Derrick Henry, then splitting a committee. He has always had the burst. He has never had the volume. Year four is usually when a back either gets the reps or gets replaced, and there is no third door.
So when a preseason night produces a bump for a back in exactly that spot, the question is not whether he looked good. Backs look good in August against second units all the time. The question is whether the coaching staff is using him like a lead back or using him like a spare part. That is the tell. Everything else is highlights.
Meanwhile the 49ers side of that field had its own subplot: with San Francisco's receiver room banged up again, De'Zhaun Stribling is the kind of name that gets talked about in the middle of August and forgotten by October, unless the injuries keep stacking. Then he's the whole conversation. That is how it goes there. It has gone that way for a while.
What else came out of Thursday night in the NFL
A few beats worth keeping in the notebook:
Rookie back Jeremiyah Love made his preseason debut, and debut tape is the most dangerous tape in football. Everybody sees what they came to see. I'd rather wait for the second look, when the defense has film on him.
There is real caution circulating about Nico Collins' injury history, and I'll say the honest version: that's not a knock on the player, it's arithmetic. Talent you can't count on is still talent. It just costs you.
And Mike McCarthy called his coaching debut with the Steelers "very emotional," which, for a man who has been on an NFL sideline as long as he has, is worth pausing on. A new building, a new stripe on the helmet, a career that has already run through a Super Bowl. Preseason means nothing and it also clearly meant something to him.
What August actually tells you
Checked the almanac. In August of 1999, Trent Green went down in a preseason game and the Rams handed the job to a 28 year old nobody named Kurt Warner, who proceeded to win league MVP and Super Bowl MVP in the same season. Preseason matters more than we admit. Just never in the way anybody predicted at the time.
Which is exactly why I try to hold August loosely. The film tells you about roles. It does not tell you about outcomes. Spears getting a bump is a role signal, not a promise, and the difference between those two things is most of the ruin in this sport.
What I'm watching next: whether Spears keeps working with the first group and, more specifically, whether he's on the field on third down and in the two minute drill. Backs who catch and pass protect stay on the grass. Backs who only run get rotated. That is the number that ends up mattering, and it will show up in the next preseason look before it shows up in a real one.
