Carson Beck did not play in his team’s preseason opener against the Raiders on Thursday night. The rookie quarterback is dealing with a rib injury that has kept him out of team drills for most of the last week.
Head coach Mike LaFleur was quick to downplay the situation. He said postgame that he has “no concern level” about Beck long term, that the injury is minor, and that the team is being cautious because it is preseason and there is no reason to force it.
That is coach-speak, but in this case it also happens to be believable. Rib injuries are notoriously annoying and notoriously overreacted to. Almost every quarterback in the league plays through some version of one during the season. The rehab is uncomfortable but not complicated. Miss a couple days, wear extra padding, get back to work.
Still, this is not the debut anyone wanted for Beck. He was the story of the preseason opener before he was ruled out. Fans wanted to see him drop back live in front of an NFL secondary for the first time. The tape from Georgia is out there. Everyone knows what he looks like against SEC defenses. The interest is in what he looks like against pros.
They will have to wait a week. LaFleur indicated that Beck should be ready for the second preseason game and will play in the third one as well. Between now and the regular-season opener, that gives him at least a couple of live series to knock the rust off.
The bigger picture is that Beck is not expected to start Week 1 either way. The plan has always been to bring him along behind the veteran on the depth chart, get him comfortable with the playbook, and let him take over at some point during the season. Missing a preseason game does not change that timeline.
Where it does matter is in the process of building trust. Beck needs to show his coaches, his teammates, and the front office that he is the future of the franchise. He cannot do that from the sideline. Every practice missed is one less rep of live competition against his own defense, one less throw to his starting receivers, one less opportunity to build the muscle memory that decides whether he is ready to play when the moment comes.
The good news is that the coaching staff seems fully on board with the plan. LaFleur was not just saying nice things. He said Beck has been in every meeting, running the play calls on the whiteboard, and getting mental reps even when he cannot physically take them. That matters more than fans give it credit for.
A cracked rib will not derail a rookie quarterback’s career. It may not even derail his season. The story here is not the injury. It is how quickly he bounces back and gets on the field where fans can start actually evaluating what they have.
Expect him in the next preseason game. Expect the panic to subside. And expect Beck to still be the future of the franchise when it does.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
