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Packers-Steelers preseason offers a first look at Green Bay’s depth with Josh Jacobs sidelined by a groin injury. Plus, Dallas tops Toronto in the WNBA, the Dodgers handle the Royals, and MLB’s busy slate includes wins for the Yankees, Cubs, White So
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Welcome to The Sports Hangover Daily, I'm Michael Benatar. Today on the show: Packers-Steelers preseason juice, Josh Jacobs' groin injury, Dallas beating Toronto in the WNBA, and the Dodgers handling Kansas City. Let's get into it.
The NFL didn't give us a final score last night, because the league is still doing its August slow-drip thing. But tonight, we get a real preseason window: Packers at Steelers, seven eastern, NFL Network. And for a Week one preseason game, I'll take it.
The Packers are the team I'm watching closer. Not because I need Jordan Love throwing twenty-five passes in August. Please don't. Put him in bubble wrap after one clean drive and call it a night. I want to see everything around him.
Green Bay has expectations now. That's what happens when you pay your quarterback and start acting like a grown-up contender. The cute rebuild phase is over. No more grading on vibes. Does the offense look organized? Does the line hold up? Do the young receivers stop turning third down into a group project?
And now Josh Jacobs is dealing with a groin injury. The camp buzz has him expected to miss at least a week. That's not panic-button stuff in mid-August, but it's annoying as hell. Running backs and soft-tissue injuries are a miserable combo. You think it's one week, then it's two. You think he's fine, then he cuts once in practice and everyone starts staring at the trainer.
Jacobs is supposed to be the adult in that offense. He's the guy who makes ugly drives survivable. If Green Bay wants to be more than a fun League Pass team — sorry, wrong sport, but you get it — Jacobs has to be right.
So tonight isn't about the scoreboard. It's about whether the Packers have real answers behind their stars. Because August depth problems turn into October losses fast.
Pittsburgh gets its own little spotlight tonight too. Steelers preseason is always funny, because their fans treat backup linebackers like future folk heroes. Some guy makes two tackles against third-stringers, and by midnight he's got a nickname and a terrible towel edit.
But this is a useful game for Pittsburgh. The offense just needs to look normal. No wasted timeouts. No false-start parade. No quarterback staring at the defense like he's trying to assemble IKEA furniture before the snap. Preseason football is sloppy, but not all sloppy is the same.
The Steelers don't need to show the whole playbook. They need to get in and out of the huddle like a professional football team. Low bar? Sure. But in August, teams still trip over low bars.
Back to Green Bay for a second: the Jacobs injury changes how I view the preseason reps. If he's out at least a week, the Packers should use this as a stress test for the rest of the backfield. Not a fake competition. A real look.
Who can pass protect? Who can catch the ball without turning a checkdown into dinner theater? Who can get three yards when everyone in the stadium knows it's a run? That's what matters if Jacobs misses time later.
And please, no suspension-chatter gymnastics off vague camp threads. Puka Nacua and Jacobs were mentioned in that bucket online, but there isn't enough verified detail to turn that into a segment. We're not doing the thing where the internet whispers and everyone pretends it's reporting. Gross hobby.
In the WNBA, Dallas beat Toronto ninety-four to eighty-eight. Good road win for the Wings, and a rough one for the Tempo because eighty-eight points should usually give you a real shot. Dallas found enough late offense to close it. That's the difference between managing the fourth quarter and just hanging on.
Major League Baseball gave us a full board, and the Dodgers took care of the Royals four to two. Clean, adult baseball. Nothing too dramatic. Exactly how Dave Roberts would draw it up if he wanted to keep everyone's blood pressure under control for once.
The Yankees beat the Mariners ten to five, because apparently subtlety was not on the menu in the Bronx. The Cubs put up twelve in a twelve to six win over Washington. The White Sox shut out the Reds five to nothing, which makes you check twice to see if your app glitched.
And the Astros beat the Giants two to one. That's an Astros win that feels like it happened in a hallway. Tight, annoying, and probably included three moments that made Giants fans stare silently at a wall.
The Hangover Take: preseason football is not about starters anymore. It's about whether your backup plan is real or fake.
Fans still obsess over whether the quarterback plays one series or two. I get it. We all want the little dopamine hit of seeing the jersey on TV. But the season is usually decided by the guys you barely notice in August.
Your third tackle. Your fourth corner. Your second running back if Josh Jacobs' groin acts up. Your backup center when the starter rolls an ankle in Week three and suddenly the whole offense sounds like silverware in a garbage disposal.
That's why Packers-Steelers matters. Not because someone is winning a fake standings point. Because these games expose the lie teams tell themselves in camp.
Everybody loves their depth chart in practice. Then the lights come on, the pass rush gets real, and some backup guard gets tossed into the quarterback's lap like patio furniture.
The teams that survive the season don't always have the prettiest stars. They have boring players who aren't disasters. That's August football. Ugly, useful, and weirdly honest.
That's your hangover. Go hydrate. I'll see you tomorrow.