2026 NFL Preseason, Week 2: What We Learned from Friday's games

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Around The NFL breaks down what you need to know from all of Friday's action from Week 2 of the 2026 NFL preseason.

• New York Jets 17, Pittsburgh Steelers 0
• Carolina Panthers 34, Jacksonville Jaguars 17
• Green Bay Packers at Denver Broncos

Score

17

• Geno is on point.New York saw all it needed to see in one possession of Geno Smith-led action. The 35-year-old marched the Jets down the field with ease for an opening 10-play, 69-yard touchdown drive. He was nimble in the pocket and showed a good balance of zip and touch depending on what throws called for. Smith also spread the ball around, starting off with 8- and 21-yard darts to Adonai Mitchell but ending up a perfect 7 of 7 on throws to six different targets. The exclamation point Smith put on his lone drive Friday night was a play-action rollout that he delivered to a wide-open Jelani Woods, who had leaked out after selling a run block, with two Pittsburgh defenders closing in. The tight end did the rest, trucking through safety DeShon Elliott for the score. The Jets’ running game was nonexistent to start the game, necessitating Smith to contribute 65 of the possession's 69 yards, but it was an otherwise perfect reintroduction to Gang Green for Smith after a decade away.
• Former Steelers first-rounder struggling.Broderick Jones played to game's end for a second straight preseason contest. The 14th-overall pick from the 2023 draft has been seeing a ton of work under new coach Mike McCarthy. It’s arguably necessary while he works his way back from a season-ending neck injury last year, but Jones also wasn’t playing well at the time he went down in 2025. He graded out as PFF’s 70th overall tackle with a score of 57.7, and he didn’t fare well against top competition early against the Jets. In three of his first pass-blocking snaps, all spent at right tackle across from New York’s exciting edge rusher David Bailey, Jones gave up two pressures and a drive-ending sack. He settled in after that only temporarily, eventually finishing with five pressures and two sacks allowed on the day. He’s now played 102 snaps through two weeks and given up seven total pressure and three sacks. This comes after Jones admitted in May that he doesn’t know what the future holds for him.

Score

34

• Panthers’ starting offense gets on the board.Bryce Young didn’t manage a scoring drive in three tries during the preseason opener against the Buffalo Bills. His first possession against Jacksonville was much the same, with the only first down coming on a defensive pass interference, but Carolina got its butt in gear after that. Young and most of the team’s starters began drive No. 2 on their own 42-yard line. They took seven plays to go another 58. Jonathon Brooks started the possession with an 11-yard run and punctuated it with a one-yard score, a welcome sight after the running back’s previous ACL injuries. In between, Young looked as composed as he has in any of the past two games in the pocket. Fantasy owners will also be happy to know Young exhibited good chemistry and looked Tetairoa McMillan’s way as the field got smaller, hitting the second-year wideout on a 17-yarder to get into the red zone and going right back to him for 8 more yards on first-and-goal from the 9. The Jags were resting their starters, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of Young and Co. getting reacquainted with the end zone. It also doesn’t hurt that Carolina went on to put a 34-point shellacking on Jacksonville before the game was called with two minutes remaining due to severe weather.

Analysis to come