NFL Preseason Week 1 Roundup: Roberto Aguayo Pick Continues to Haunt Buccaneers

Week 1 of the 2017 preseason continued Friday night with a trio of games. There was a matchup of 2016 playoff teams in the Big Apple, a contest between a pair of teams with legit hopes of making the postseason in 2017 and a game between a division champion and a tomato can in Kansas City.

Of course, preseason games aren't really about the games themselves. They're an opportunity for teams to start working out the kinks. A shot for rookies to get their first taste of NFL game action. And a chance for fans to get their first looks at their favorite teams in 2017.

Friday's action also featured a handful of prominent youngsters making their NFL debut, whether it was a young quarterback for the Chiefs or a pass-rusher for the Steelers with a last name folks recognize.

There weren't as many games as the day before, but there was still no shortage of takeaways—especially given all the action that took place off the field earlier in the day.

Here's a look at some of the biggest.

Roberto Aguayo's Struggles Continue

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In 2016, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers turned more than a few heads when they traded up in the second round to draft Florida State kicker Roberto Aguayo. It was the earliest a kicker had been drafted in a decade.

Those same heads then rocked in laughter all season as the youngster proceeded to struggle mightily as a rookie, missing on nine of 31 field-goal attempts.

It was such a bad season that the Buccaneers brought in Nick Folk to push the youngster in camp this year.

Um…it’s not working.

While Folk connected on his lone attempt in a 23-12 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Aguayo missed on both a 47-yard field goal and an extra point.

According to Bonnie Mott of Bucs Wire, Buccaneers head coach Dirk Koetter was clear about what he expects from his kicker.

"I mean, it’s a simple process," he said. "You’re a kicker in the NFL—inside 50 yards you’ve got to make your kicks. I’m not being a hardass or anything, that’s just what it is. That’s what it is in this league. They know it, I know it, everyone here knows it. It is what it is."

This is not going to be a fun week of Hard Knocks for Aguayo.

There may be yelling. And words I can't print here.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers Look Like a Contender

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It wasn't all bad news for the Buccaneers.

In fact, despite the loss the Bucs should keep their calendar clear for January—they may have some stuff to do.

Is it presumptuous and knee-jerk as all get-out to say the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are destined for the playoffs this season after one preseason game? Of course.

But in its first game action of 2017 against the Cincinnati Bengals, a Bucs team that’s a trendy pick to make the postseason this year looked good.

Jameis Winston and the Tampa offense was pinned deep on both of their first two drives. On the first, Winston led a 14-play 92-yard drive that culminated in a 20-yard Roberto Aguayo field goal.

Yes. He actually made one.

The Buccaneers started their second drive from inside their own 10-yard line as well. But they were on the move again before a Mike Evans drop stalled the drive. Still, they were at least able to flip field position.

For the night Winston was 9-of-13 for 99 yards, with Evans accounting for four of those completions and 58 of the yards—fantasy stud alert!

It wasn’t just Tampa's offense that had all the fun, either. The defense did an excellent job of bending without breaking on Cincy's first drive of the game, with second-year cornerback Vernon Hargreaves jumping a route to pick off an Andy Dalton pass in the end zone.

It’s only a quarter-plus of one exhibition game, but it serves to reinforce what most already believed.

Jameis and the Winstonettes are a talented football team.

Buffalo Bills Shake Things Up with a Pair of Big Friday Trades

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If there was any doubt that the new regime in Buffalo was intent on remaking the team in its image, those doubts were put to bed Friday when the Bills made a pair of trades that shook up the roster on both sides of the ball.

First, as the Bills announced, Buffalo sent wide receiver Sammy Watkins and a sixth-round pick to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for cornerback E.J. Gaines and a second-round pick.

The wheeling and dealing wasn’t done. The Bills also swung a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles, shipping cornerback Ronald Darby to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for wide receiver Jordan Matthews and a third-round pick.

Darby, who was a second-round pick of the Bills in 2015, played well as a rookie but struggled last season. Watkins was an even bigger disappointment—the talented but oft-injured former No. 4 overall pick the Bills traded an extra first-rounder to move up for in the 2014 draft. The Bills had already declined Watkins’ fifth-year option for 2018, but his sudden departure was still a surprise.

New Buffalo GM Brandon Beane vehemently denied the moves were a white flag from the team in 2017.

“This is not a throw-in-the-towel thing at all," Beane told reporters. “Somebody mentioned that somebody said that out there, and honestly, that's annoying to me. You don't know me if you think I'm throwing in the towel. When I go out there and play pingpong, whatever I'm doing, I'm not throwing in the towel. If we're throwing in the towel, we're not trying to get a starting receiver back."

The argument can be made that in refusing to pick up his option, the Bills had already passed judgment on Watkins’ long-term future with the team, and Matthews is at least a capable young receiver with more receiving yards the past three years than Watkins. But in selling off young talent from the Doug Whaley era and stockpiling picks, the Bills look like a team more focused on the future than the present.

The Rams, in theory, got the No. 1 wide receiver Jared Goff so badly needs if he’s to take the next step (or a step) forward in his second season. But that "in theory" caveat is a lulu with Watkins, who has missed 11 games the past two years.

Never mind that he’s still working his way back from foot surgery and will become a free agent after the season.

The Eagles found a taker for Matthews (who they’d been shopping for some time) and added a young defensive back in Darby who will probably be their best cornerback as soon as he sets foot in Philly. However, Darby backslid badly with the Bills in 2016, ranking 68th at his position, per Pro Football Focus.

In other words, there could just as easily be zero winners in these trades as three, depending on how things shake out over the next year.

Ryan Tannehill to Have Season-Ending Knee Surgery

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We knew before the first full week of the preseason that the 2017 campaign was all but over for Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill.

The 'Fins didn’t sign Jay Cutler because of his sunny disposition.

It’s official now. Per Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald, Tannehill will have season-ending surgery to repair his partially torn ACL.

Had Tannehill just had the knee surgically repaired after suffering a similar injury in December, it’s possible he’d still be on the field and Cutler would be preparing to call games on television.

You can call it 20/20 hindsight, but it looks like Tannehill’s decision to opt for rest and rehab rather than going under the knife has backfired in spectacular fashion. It wasn’t like Tannehill was injured on a fluke hit. His knee simply gave out on a roll-out.

Now, the 29-year-old is once again looking at a lengthy rehab, and possibly an uncertain future in South Florida.

T.J. Watt Looked Like Exactly What the Steelers Need Him to Be

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It’s important not to get too swept up in the happenings of the first week of the preseason. It’s been a long while since fans saw live football, so things have a tendency to get a bit, um, amplified.

See Trubisky, Mitchell.

However, after watching outside linebacker T.J. Watt make his NFL debut for the Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday, two things are certain.

Watt is a mortal lock first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he’s a better player than his no-good older brother J.J. ever thought about being.

What? Why are you looking at me like that?

Kidding aside, Watt’s first quarter of his first game went about as well as the Steelers could possibly have asked. On Watt’s third play, the first-round pick got past New York Giants tackle Ereck Flowers for a sack. On the next series, Watt notched another one on a busted play.

Yes, it was gift-wrapped. But he finished the play.

As ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler reported, in a halftime interview with KDKA-TV, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin offered some tongue-in-cheek praise for his young edge-rusher.

"Those will probably be the two easiest sacks of his [NFL career]," Tomlin said. "I don't want him to get disillusioned. But I do like the things that I've sent thus far."

It might slightly premature to pencil Watt in for a 32-sack rookie season (pretty sure that would be a record), but it’s a great start for Watt nonetheless.

The Steelers have been trying for years to find an heir apparent for James Harrison outside. Jarvis Jones wasn’t the guy. The jury’s still out on Alvin Dupree.

The same can be said of Watt after one exhibition game. But it’s a good sign when the head coach is cracking wise at intermission.

The New York Giants Offensive Line Continues to Be Offensive

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Entering the 2017 season, the Achilles' heel of the New York Giants was the offensive line.

According to Michael Eisen of the team's website, center Weston Richburg believed heading into New York's preseason opener that the O-line was starting to put things together.

"In the game, it's going to take all 11," Richburg said. "So I think we've done a better job of all 11 guys being on the same page, and we've just got to continue with that consistency and carry that through the preseason and regular season."

If that's the case, it didn't show against the Steelers on Friday night.

The tone was set for Big Blue's big uglies early, when T.J. Watt got around left tackle Ereck Flowers for a sack on New York's third offensive play of the game. It was one of four sacks the Giants allowed in the first half, and the line also failed to establish much of a push in the run game—an area where it struggled mightily a season ago.

It's still too early to hit the panic button. At least one of those sacks carries an asterisk (it came on a busted play), and Eli Manning would no doubt have done a better job getting rid the ball than Josh "Please Don't Get Hurt Eli" Johnson.

But through one preseason game, the same issues up front that dogged the Giants last season don't appear to have improved—at all.

Joe Mixon Kept His Camp Momentum Rolling Against the Buccaneers

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Running back Joe Mixon was one of the more polarizing players in the 2017 draft, but since the youngster arrived in Cincinnati, reports have been almost universally positive.

According to Jason Marcum of SB Nation's Cincy Jungle, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis had plenty of good things to say about Mixon heading into the first preseason game of his NFL career.

"His personality, his work ethic, how he comes and approaches practice every day," Lewis said. "From the very first rookie camp here in Cincinnati, you felt that, but you aren't sure because it's a very limited exposure. Now that's a day-to-day thing with the ups and downs in camp—being tired, being asked to run and finish every play. He likes to do that. He likes to run down that field like he is scoring a touchdown, and we are going to give him a lot of opportunities to do that."

Mixon kept the good times rolling right into the game with the Buccaneers at Paul Brown Stadium. The 6'1", 228-pounder averaged over five yards per carry on his six totes, adding an 11-yard reception.

That 11-yard catch personified everything the Bengals hope they are getting from the former Oklahoma standout. Early in the second quarter, Mixon took a dump-off from Cincinnati quarterback AJ McCarron, weaved his way through several defenders and then carried a couple more with him for a first down.

Mixon played like a combination of the best the tailbacks already on the Bengals roster have to offer—he had the power of Jeremy Hill combined with the elusiveness and receiving ability of Giovani Bernard.

The second-round pick didn't start, but he juked his way that much closer to opening the 2017 season as the Bengals' lead tailback.

Battle of the Backups!

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The San Francisco 49ers added a bushel of quarterbacks in the offseason. None of those quarterbacks will likely be the team's signal-caller of the future.

However, rookie C.J. Beathard did what he could Friday night against the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium to at least inset himself into the conversation to be the backup quarterback of the present.

After a quick and ineffective three-yard passing performance from starter Brian Hoyer, Matt Barkley entered the game at quarterback. He then proceeded to have a very Matt Barkley night for the Niners under center, completing 10 of 17 passes for 168 yards against the Chiefs' second-team defense.

It was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

On Monday, Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com reported that Barkley and Beathard were essentially neck-and-neck in the "battle" to serve as Hoyer's understudy.

"They've been competing," 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said. "I think they've had even reps. I think it's a good battle for us. We've been looking at it every day, and they're going to make it tough on us."

Beathard came on in the second half, and while it came against scrubs, the third-round pick from Iowa (long a hotbed of quarterback play) did manage to do something neither Hoyer or Barkley could.

He threw a touchdown pass. More than one, even.

It's going to be a long year in San Francisco, folks—no matter who is playing quarterback.

Patrick Mahomes Had an Uneventful Debut for the Chiefs

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Like Mitchell Trubisky and Deshaun Watson, Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs will have to deal with the pressure of being not just a first-round quarterback, but also a first-round QB whose team traded up to acquire him.

Unlike Trubisky and Watson, there won’t be any folks calling into radio stations in Kansas City on Saturday demanding that the Chiefs give Mahomes the starting job.

Mind you, this isn't to say that the 10th overall pick in the 2017 NFL draft played poorly in his first game action. He progressed through his reads fairly quickly and made a couple of nice throws en route to completing seven of nine attempts for 49 yards and a touchdown.

Never mind that Kansas City's reserve receivers aren't exactly scaring opponents.

But where Trubisky and DeShone Kizer of the Cleveland Browns lit up third-team defenses and filled the heads of fans with dreams (delusions, whatever) of rookie success, the Kansas City offense spent most of Friday's game against the 49ers sleepwalking after the starters left.

And that's OK. Alex Smith and the first team drove the length of the field and punched it in on their first possession, and this is undoubtedly Smith's team for at least one more year barring an injury.

It was the perfect capper to Friday's slate.

A healthy dose of reality.