NFL preseason Week 3 scouting notebook: Buyer beware for buzzy Bills James Cook,

Let’s round up the final preseason week — the least meaningful, generally, of them all because so many starters are mothballed. We’re going to focus mostly on games where the starting quarterback actually played.

In Cleveland, Deshaun Watson did play and had some moments, including this scramble drill big play to Amari Cooper. Donovan Peoples-Jones outsnapped Elijah Moore when Watson was on the field. As I’ve been saying all summer, Moore is strictly a slot receiver and should not be expected to play in two-WR sets. There’s no clarity on the RB2, especially with Cleveland trading for Pierre Strong after the game, presumably as a receiving-oriented backup to Nick Chubb (not great news for Chubb, IMO).

For the Bills, Damien Harris scored the goal-line TD with the starters. James Cook is not going to score easy TDs and Josh Allen has never really thrown to RBs. I don’t get Cook sneaking into the fourth and even fifth round of late. He’s maybe a seventh-round pick. I have Cook in my rankings as my RB24. But I’m out of that range before the sixth round, opting for WRs instead. I would draft David Montgomery (my RB17) over Cook without hesitation.

Deonte Harty (formerly Harris) played over Trent Sherfield in the slot (9 snaps to 2) with the starters. Also, Dawson Knox outsnapped Dalton Kincaid, but Kincaid ran more routes. Kincaid ran routes on just two thirds of pass plays. Is that a Top 12 TE? Top 10, where he’s going? No, it’s not.

Consider that Luke Musgrave ran routes for Green Bay on 16 of 18 pass plays (89%). That sounds more like a Top 12 TE, even for a rookie, and Musgrave is TE20 this past week in NFFC drafts (vs. TE11 for Kincaid). I have Musgrave one spot above Kincaid.

The Bears RB situation got murkier. The reports of D’Onta Foreman getting cut seemed misguided given he was the second RB to play and then Khalil Herbert came back again with the backups. You have to stay tuned to Tuesday’s cuts, but if I had to guess now, Foreman is the second RB and this seems like a full-blown committee (when you consider how often Justin Fields will run). Herbert has never topped 154 carries in the NFL or college.

Fields, by the way, looked awful. The Bears could pull the plug on him in Week 10 if he doesn’t progress well beyond this atrocity.

DeeJay Dallas was again the third-down back for the Seahawks, not second-round pick Zach Charbonnet. I don’t think Charbonnet will be playable early in the year. He needs a Ken Walker injury or to just outshine Walker when he gets backup work. Now, I don’t think Walker is very reliable down-in and down-out. So Charbonnet can win that job. In the meantime, though, he’s going to have to be benched. So he has to be your fourth RB and you need a heavy RB draft for that to happen. I advise against that strongly in all Flex 10 or greater leagues (three WRs and a flex with PPR).

The big question for the Jets is whether Randall Cobb is ahead of Mecole Hardman on the depth…