The NFL Hall of Fame preseason game is always the first football game of the new year.
On Thursday night, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders will make the trek to Canton, Ohio, to play in the first preseason action of the NFL calendar year, giving us our first live football game of the summer.
The matchup between the Jaguars, who have No. 1 overall pick Travon Walker out of Georgia on the roster, and the Raiders will kick off at 8 p.m. Eastern time and can be seen on NBC:
And so it begins… pic.twitter.com/rjHCxKmF10
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 4, 2022
Jacksonville QB Trevor Lawrence and RB Travis Etienne will not play on Thursday night, and NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport says it’s unlikely the Raiders will play their stars, either:
#Jaguars coach Doug Pederson announced that QB Trevor Lawrence and RB Travis Etienne won't play in the Hall of Fame game on Thursday. Expect the #Raiders to be on the same page with several starters watching from the sidelines.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 2, 2022
Does that mean Las Vegas’s new tandem of QB Derek Carr and WR Davante Adams will be watching from the sidelines? Even so, there would be plenty of intrigue with this matchup.
This will be the first time we see former Georgia RB Zamir White in an NFL uniform, as he’ll try to crack a running back rotation led by former Alabama star Josh Jacobs.
Who will win this matchup in Canton? We’ll find out tonight, but the biggest news of all is that football is officially back!
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
