Cam Ward is back for more NFL preseason action. Here's how to watch Friday's games, odds
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A pair of tune-up football games on TV kick off the second of three preseason weeks. Ward's Tennessee Titans face the Atlanta Falcons, then Reid rallies his Kansas City Chiefs to meet Macdonald and the Seattle Seahawks. Below is the national and regional broadcast info, plus training camp roundups and the best 'fusion' player from each matchup.
Out-of-market fans can stream regional preseason games with an NFL+ subscription.
Ward will be back under center for a couple of series in Atlanta. The Titans' top pick made his unofficial pro debut in last week's preseason opener, a 29-7 loss at Tampa Bay. He went 5-of-8 under center for 67 yards, and connected with Calvin Ridley three times on a second-quarter touchdown drive. For what it's worth, Ward got some tremendous protection during that sequence:
Cam to Calvin for 27 yards and the first down!
📺: #TENvsTB on @WKRN & NFL+ pic.twitter.com/z1ilZ6zct2
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) August 10, 2025
Penix Jr. and a host of other starters won't play for the Falcons on Friday. Atlanta's first preseason action ended on a sobering note; Detroit's Morice Norris left the fourth quarter in an ambulance, and the two teams naturally called it a night from there. Norris' scare underscored the precariousness of NFL contracts and the vulnerabilities of football's dream chasers. Again, everyone wins this game if no one gets hurt.
Best player to wear both jerseys (by Approximate Value): Julio Jones (119 AV with Atlanta, 4 with Tennessee)
'D.J. Williams thought Michael Penix Jr.'s teammates liked him. On Wednesday, he learned it for certain after the Atlanta Falcons quarterback was knocked to the ground during a joint practice against the Tennessee Titans, setting off a large fight that took several minutes to disentangle.
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'Obviously, you don't want that,' Williams, Atlanta's quarterbacks coach, said, 'but I take some positives out of it because you saw the guys take up for him. That speaks to his leadership and who he is in that locker room. As coaches, we're upstairs — they're downstairs. We don't really see a lot, but obviously he has a relationship with the guys.'
The part that Williams didn't like was seeing his starting quarterback at the bottom of a pile of players surrounded by grappling teammates. After practice, Penix still wasn't sure how he ended up at the bottom of that pile. He did know what started the fight, though.
'I threw a deep pass. They had (said) a lot of words throughout practice, so I gave my words,' he said. 'It just went a little too far. Celebration. Somebody didn't like it, and it went on from there. Everything happened pretty fast.' — Josh Kendall
The AFC's reigning champions opened preseason with a 20-17 loss at Arizona. Four different quarterbacks threw a pass for K.C. in that game. Gardner Minshew completed six of his nine tries, but fellow newcomer Bailey Zappe threw interceptions in the second and third quarters. Former seventh-rounder Chris Oladokun had 39 passing yards and another 26 rushing. And Patrick Mahomes finished with a flawless line (1-for-1, 1 yard, 1 touchdown). Check out this grab from Jason Brownlee:
WHAT A CATCH 🤯 pic.twitter.com/neF7Xr7fQ7
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) August 10, 2025
Fifth-round rookie Tory Horton saw seven targets in Seattle's first exhibition, which ended as a 23-23 tie with Las Vegas. He came away with three of them, including a 10-yard touchdown from second-stint Seahawks quarterback Drew Lock. On the other side of the ball, Josh Jobe and Nehemiah Pritchett each picked off Raiders QB Aidan O'Connell.
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Best player to wear both jerseys (by Approximate Value): Dave Krieg (97 AV with Seattle, 17 with Kansas City)
'The Chiefs love [Tyquan] Thornton and envision a role for him this season, meaning something would have to go wrong over the next two weeks to change their minds. Thornton, a 2022 second-round pick of the Patriots, joined Kansas City's practice squad late last season and has taken off since. Coaches love his speed — he ran a 4.28-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine — and he seems to perfectly fit in a role Justin Watson played for the Chiefs over the last three seasons. The offense often needs field-spacers, pushing wideouts deep downfield to occupy defenders in the hopes of opening up other guys underneath. Thornton has the speed to do that while also helping out in another area — special teams — where Watson also was a solid contributor.' — Jesse Newell
'It is common for rookies to receive praise from veterans in their position group or on their side of the ball, as Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Tory Horton has.
'He can play,' Jaxon Smith-Njigba said of Horton on Tuesday. 'He's a baller.'
One way to tell that a rookie is really making an impression is when guys on the other side of the ball single him out or go out of their way to mention his performance. During Horton's news conference on Aug. 4, cornerback Riq Woolen crashed the party to reveal that his nickname for the fifth-round rookie is 'Jerry Rice Jr.' On Monday, veteran cornerback Shaquill Griffin was asked to assess the receivers he's been facing in practice.
'I feel like I've been seeing the rookie show up a lot lately, Griffin said. 'There's a lot of plays where you don't see a lot of rookies move the way he moves, make the plays he makes. It just shows the type of room that we have back there to get a chance to have the rookie being on the same level as some of these older guys.'' — Michael-Shawn Dugar
Betting/odds, ticketing and streaming links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
(Photo of Cam Ward: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
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