Will three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald come out of retirement to rejoin the Rams? Which quarterback battles deserve the most attention? It’s time to break down the biggest storylines around the league with NFL training camp opening.
All 32 NFL teams have started training camp in some form while the last reporting day for veterans around the league is Tuesday.
As the ramp-up to the 2026 NFL season takes the next major step, with now just a month and a half until the first kickoff, let’s reset with the five most compelling storylines league-wide for training camp.
TeamFB7 will go team-by-team over the next month with far more insight, commentary, projections and predictions for each roster, but there are some overarching storylines that deserve the spotlight as the pads go on around the NFL.
1. Will Future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald Come Out Of Retirement?
There is no other unanswered question at this point that could have more potential impact on the NFL season than Donald’s decision whether to rejoin the Los Angeles Rams after two years in retirement.
The Rams are the preseason Super Bowl favorites regardless.
They return reigning NFL MVP Matthew Stafford at quarterback, star receivers Puka Nacua and Davante Adams and the rest of the playmakers from the league’s highest-scoring offense (30.5 points per game) in 2025.
But the Rams come into 2026 even stronger after investing significantly in upgrading the defense.
Los Angeles traded a 2026 first-round pick (and three other picks) to the Chiefs for cornerback Trent McDuffie (a first-team All-Pro in 2023 and second-team selection in 2024), gave him a contract extension making him the highest-paid corner in league history (4 years, $124 million) and then signed Kansas City’s other top cornerback Jaylen Watson as a free agent.
The Rams then dealt a 2027 first-round pick (and two other future Day 2 picks) along with emerging young edge rusher Jared Verse for two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett. Fresh off setting the single-season record with 23 sacks last season, the star edge rusher then got a restructured 5-year, $208.2-million deal.
Those moves alone should transform a middle-of-the-pack defense into a top-10 or better unit.
But the potential for that defense to add a future Hall of Famer to the middle of an already stout line remains the story of the summer.
The Donald buzz has been ongoing ever since the Rams acquired Garrett on June 1, but there’s still no clarity or decision on whether it will happen.
“For those of you guys that do know Aaron, he’s very diligent,” Rams coach Sean McVay said over the weekend. “Anything that he does, he does all-in. And so he’s going through a very strict, regimented process that was similar to what he did when he played. … If he feels good, then you guys know he’s going to be ready to rock.”
McVay said he “genuinely” doesn’t know what will happen with the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year who retired after the 2023 season and a 10-year career with the Rams that saw him make the Pro Bowl every season, earn eight first-team All-Pro honors, rack up 111 sacks and 176 tackles for loss and make his case as the greatest defensive tackle in NFL history.
Donald won one Super Bowl ring with the Rams and knows he has a prime opportunity to add another if he returns, now 35 years old. That’s going to be hard to pass up.
Los Angeles is good enough to win it all as is, but adding one of the greatest defensive players of this generation to play next to another of the greatest defensive players of this generation to complement the best offense in the league … goodness.
2. Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Competition
There are technically a handful of quarterback competitions to play out in training camp, but realistically there are two that carry any suspense.
No matter how it is framed elsewhere, there is simply no scenario in which a healthy Kyler Murray takes a backseat to J.J. McCarthy in Minnesota. Murray is there because the Vikings realized they couldn’t move forward with McCarthy, plain and simple.
Some would throw the Arizona Cardinals on the list, but the team just capitulated to Jacoby Brissett’s contract standoff with a reworked one-year, $15.5-million deal (that can reach $21 million with incentives) because there’s no question he is at least opening the season as the starter over Gardner Minshew and rookie Carson Beck.
And then, certainly, there is intrigue in Las Vegas as Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza goes through his first training camp. But it seems pretty clear the Raiders are intent on taking pressure off Mendoza as a rookie and letting veteran Kirk Cousins at least open the season as the starter.
So that leaves two true training camp quarterback battles, and the most important one is what happens in Atlanta.
The Falcons finished in a three-way tie atop the meager NFC South at 8-9 but missed the playoffs last season, in part because they went 3-6 in games started by young QB Michael Penix Jr. before his season-ending ACL injury.
Atlanta invested a lot in Penix, the No. 8 overall selection in the 2024 NFL Draft, and seemed determined to give him a long runway to work through his struggles and prove himself. But that was then.
The team fired head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot and brought in a new regime that has no personal investment in Penix. The Falcons then signed veteran QB Tua Tagovailoa after his release from the Dolphins.
This QB battle seems genuinely wide-open.
There remains uncertainty as to when Penix will be medically cleared for full participation in camp, but the expectation is that over the course of the next month-plus he’ll get a real chance to impress head coach Kevin Stefanski and the new staff while splitting reps with Tagovailoa in practice.
Tagovailoa would seem the favorite given that he’s been a better NFL quarterback than Penix to this point and he joins the Falcons with everything to prove after his release in Miami. But the Dolphins chose to eat his remaining guaranteed money on his fat contract and move on for a reason after he was benched last season while throwing for 2,660 yards, 20 TDs and 15 INTs in 14 starts.
Penix, meanwhile, is 4-8 in 12 NFL starts while totaling 2,757 yards, 12 TDs and 6 INTs.
Whichever QB wins the job gets the keys to a loaded offense with star running back Bijan Robinson, wide receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts under the guidance of an offensive-minded two-time NFL Coach of the Year in Stefanski.
With even decent quarterback play, the Falcons could be one of the bigger surprise teams in the league in 2026.
3. Cleveland Browns Quarterback Competition
Then there are the Cleveland Browns …
First-year head coach Todd Monken, the former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator, has to choose between QBs Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders.
It’s hard to imagine the outcome making a ton of difference either way for the rebuilding Browns, who had a very nice draft but also traded away their best player in Garrett and have a lot more work to do to their roster rebuild over the next year and beyond.
Watson hasn’t played in an NFL game since 2024 and hasn’t played a full season since 2020 with the Houston Texans.
His career completely unraveled with the slew of lawsuits over improper behavior toward massage therapists that led to the Texans sidelining him for the entire 2021 season followed by an 11-game suspension in 2022 during his first year with the Browns. He then sustained a season-ending shoulder injury in 2023, a ruptured Achilles tendon in 2024 and a reinjury to the Achilles that subsequent offseason.
In all, he’s played in 19 games over his four years with the Browns, who made the disastrous trade for him despite knowing about his off-the-field legal issues and then gave the QB an unthinkable fully guaranteed five-year, $230-million contract.
When he has played, he’s played poorly — far removed from leading the NFL in passing yards (4,823) with the Texans in 2020.
But he’s under contract for this year, finally healthy again, and the Browns don’t have any established options at QB standing in his way.
Sanders passed for 1,400 yards, 7 TDs and 10 INTs after getting his shot mid-season last year as a fifth-round draft pick.
It’s a tough situation for Monken and the Browns.
Sanders may well not be an NFL starting-caliber QB, but there’s also almost zero chance the Browns would possibly give Watson another contract after the damage this current one did to the franchise, so what’s the value in playing him this year for a team with no legitimate shot to contend?
It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
4. Tracking Key Stars Back From Major Injury
Two-time MVP and three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes is fully cleared for the start of training camp, which is different from being cleared to play in the season opener.
Mahomes has been intent on making it back for the start of the season after tearing his ACL and LCL in mid-December as part of the Chiefs’ lost season.
Kansas City’s 6-11 finish in 2025 snapped a streak of nine straight AFC West titles, 10 straight playoff appearances, seven straight AFC conference championship appearances and three straight Super Bowl appearances.
The Chiefs invested in free agency to give Mahomes a bolstered rushing attack in signing reigning Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III away from the Seahawks, and the team will look to show last season was an anomaly and outlier. But Mahomes’ health and performance will be the ultimate key to that.
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Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones is also fully cleared for camp after tearing his Achilles tendon in early December.
Jones was having a career year in his first season with the Colts and had the team off to an 8-2 start before the injuries took their toll. Jones initially tried to play through a fractured fibula before then tearing the Achilles, and Indianapolis went on to lose its final seven games and miss the playoffs.
How Jones looks and holds up in his return this season will decide whether the Colts are a playoff contender or otherwise.
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Meanwhile, New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers has faced a tougher-than-expected road back after tearing his ACL in Week 4 of last season.
Nabers later needed a second surgery on that knee, keeping him out of spring workouts, with new Giants coach John Harbaugh saying it was “not a simple” injury.
It’s unclear what Nabers status is for training camp or the season, but ESPN reported last week that the wide receiver is not expected to be placed on the physically unable to perform list, which is an encouraging sign.
Nabers had 109 catches for 1,204 yards and 7 TDs as a rookie in 2024. While the Giants are in rebuilding mode to a degree, they aren’t writing off this season, and Nabers is key to their potential. Without him, the team has one of the weakest wide receiver corps in the NFL.
5. The Brandon Aiyuk Saga And Remaining Free Agents
The spiraling demise of wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk has been one of the wilder stories in the league this offseason.
After posting back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in 2022-23, including 75 catches for 1,342 yards and 7 TDs his last full season, Aiyuk sustained a torn ACL and MCL midway through the 2024 season.
He never returned to the 49ers due to a rift between the receiver and the franchise, with the 49ers announcing in November they were voiding the Aiyuk’s guaranteed money for 2026. The receiver has since lashed out publicly against the team and staff, lashed out at Washington Commanders QB and former college teammate Jayden Daniels to end any chance of him being traded there, all while the 49ers have yet to release him as the NFL’s most awkward standoff continues.
It’s clear Aiyuk will never play another down for the 49ers, and now the question is whether he ever plays for any NFL team again after his off-field antics.
Meanwhile, there are several unsigned veteran free agents who could still land on rosters and make an impact in 2026.
The most intriguing are wide receivers Stefon Diggs, Tyreek Hill (if and when he’s healthy enough to return), Keenan Allen, Deebo Samuel, linebacker Bobby Wagner, edge rusher Joey Bosa and offensive tackles Taylor Decker and Cam Robinson.
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