With NFL Week 1 and college football’s Week 0 both closing in, this is the stretch where depth charts stop being theoretical. Injuries at training camp start deciding real roles, and preseason polls start setting the baseline that lines will move against all fall. Here’s what our team is tracking on both sides of the football calendar this week — and why it matters for how we’ll be reading matchups once games count.
NFL: Backfields Are Getting Rewritten in Real Time
The running back situation in New York is a good example of why camp reports matter more than they get credit for. Jets running back Breece Hall strained his groin in a non-contact drill on Monday and is expected to miss two to three weeks. Head coach Aaron Glenn has said he still expects Hall back for the Week 1 opener against the Titans, but that’s a tight runway with essentially no preseason reps to build on. Any lingering hesitation in Week 1 usage is worth watching before trusting the Jets’ backfield in an early-season matchup.
Across the river, the Giants added a different kind of question mark, signing Najee Harris to a one-year deal after he missed all of 2025 recovering from a torn Achilles. He joins a crowded room with Tyrone Tracy, Devin Singletary, and Eric Gray, which means touches — not talent — will be the thing to track in the preseason snaps that remain. A crowded backfield with an unproven-this-year lead option is exactly the kind of situation where early lines can misprice usage.
New Orleans has its own attrition story. Rookie receiver Jordyn Tyson, the Saints’ eighth overall pick, is facing roughly two months out with a hamstring injury — his second hamstring setback of the offseason. That’s a real dent in a rebuilding offense’s ceiling, and it pushes more of the target share onto whoever settles in as the Saints’ early-season No. 1.
A few other camp notes worth filing away: Christian McCaffrey is dealing with some reported tightness that San Francisco says isn’t a major concern, but 49ers backfield health is always worth a second look given his history. Bears rookie Kyle Monangai is out several weeks with a hyperextended knee, thinning Chicago’s run-game depth. Vikings safety Jamal Adams is facing season-ending quadriceps surgery, a real loss for that secondary. And on the pass-rush side, Dallas added a veteran presence, signing Von Miller to a $5.5 million deal — a low-cost, potentially high-value add if he’s still got anything left off the edge.
College Football: Ohio State Opens No. 1, With a Reason for Caution
The AP released its 2026 preseason Top 25, and Ohio State takes the top spot with 40 first-place votes, followed by Oregon at No. 2. Georgia, Notre Dame, and Texas round out the top five, with defending champion Indiana checking in at No. 6. The Big Ten is the clear power conference by this poll’s math — eight ranked teams and 62 combined first-place votes — while the SEC actually has more ranked teams at nine but didn’t collect a single first-place vote. That gap between poll respect and vote count is its own storyline heading into the season.
Here’s the part our team thinks bettors should sit with: being preseason No. 1 has historically been a poor predictor of who’s cutting down nets in January. Only two preseason No. 1 teams this century — Alabama in 2017 and USC in 2004 — have gone on to win the national title. Last year is the freshest reminder: Texas opened the season ranked No. 1 and lost its opener to Ohio State. Preseason polls are built on roster talent and offseason buzz, not in-season matchup reality, and that gap is exactly where value tends to show up once real film exists.
Outside the ranked field, Boise State picked up the most “others receiving votes” support among unranked teams, checking in around No. 28, while Clemson and Florida were among the closest programs left out entirely. No Group of Five program cracked the actual Top 25 — worth remembering once those matchups against Power Four opponents start populating early-season lines.
Why This Matters Before Anyone Sets a Line
None of this is a pick — it’s the groundwork. Injury reports change offensive shares before a single defensive coordinator has to plan for them, and preseason polls set market expectations that don’t always survive contact with an actual schedule. Our team’s approach has always been to build the case before we build the number: who’s actually healthy, who’s actually earned the reps, and where a poll or a headline might be pricing in more certainty than the roster supports. As camps wind down and real snaps start counting, we’ll be back with matchup-specific analysis once there’s enough on tape to reason from.