Carson Beck makes his NFL debut and Kenny Pickett starts for his fifth team in four years.
Welcome to the NFL preseason. If you want to see starters play, wait until next month when the games count in the standings. Or watch joint practices.
The exhibition schedule kicks off Thursday night with Beck and the Arizona Cardinals facing Pickett and the Carolina Panthers in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.
The preseason is an opportunity for rookies, backups and players fighting for roster spots to get snaps and showcase what they can do. Most first-round picks won’t play much. Cardinals running back Jerimiyah Love (No. 3 pick) and Panthers tackle Monroe Freeling (No. 19) are sitting out the opener.
Beck, a third-round pick from Miami, will be under center for new Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur. Veteran Jacoby Brissett is Arizona’s starter and Gardner Minshew is the backup.
“I had no clue I was going to start,” Beck said. “Obviously, I thought I was going to play but I really didn’t have any expectations going into any of this. Obviously, our schedule is absolutely crazy right now, practice, meetings. But I’m looking forward to it.”
Beck, who led the Hurricanes to a national championship matchup against Indiana, said he won’t have any butterflies before the game.
“I think the last time I was nervous was maybe when I was 8 years old for our city championship in Pop Warner,” Beck said. “It’s a game at the end of the day. It’s an opportunity to go out there, have fun with your teammates and play the game that I love. It’s what I love doing.”
Pickett, a first-round pick by the Steelers in 2022 who led Pittsburgh to a 14-10 record in two seasons, has bounced around the league.
He spent the 2024 season with the Eagles before Philadelphia traded him to Cleveland last year. The Browns sent him to the Raiders during training camp and he started two games for Las Vegas. The Panthers signed Pickett to back up Bryce Young.
“Just want to go out there and operate a high level,” Pickett said. “All the hard work that we’re putting in practice you want to see come to life on game day and that’s everyone just doing their job and executing.”
Carolina won the NFC South last season with an 8-9 record. But the Panthers led the 12-win Rams in the final minute of their wild-card playoff game before NFL MVP Matthew Stafford threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Colby Parkinson with 38 seconds left for a 34-31 victory.
The Panthers have been getting after each other in practice, so coach Dave Canales is looking forward to seeing his team hit an opponent.
“Tempers are flaring a little bit and I just have to remind them none of that helps us. It throws us out of the rhythm of practice,” Canales said.
Practice is everything for coaches in training camp.
Fewer teams play their starters in preseason games so they have to get them ready for the regular season in practice. Joint practices — teams facing opponents ahead of their exhibition game — are a growing trend in the NFL.
A total of 28 teams have scheduled joint practices which begin next week.
The Rams have joint practices with the Cowboys and Saints coming up.
“That’ll be basically their preseason,” Los Angeles coach Sean McVay said. “We’ll get an opportunity to see a lot of the younger guys play in the preseason and those are great opportunities to play real football. When we put the pads on, it’s close, but you’re still not playing tackle football. And there are a couple spots. There are always important things that you want to be able to see unfold and be able to establish some depth if, God forbid, we have the inevitable injuries that do occur. But we’ll take it a day at a time and there’s so many things.”
The Detroit Lions are one of the four teams that won’t have any joint practices so some of their starters could see action in the preseason games.
“We have got to get these guys ready for a season,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “There’s a chance we play some of these guys in the preseason without the joint practices, and so I’m going to do what I think is best to prepare these guys for 17 weeks, but also understand that we have got to be smart about it and we can’t break them in training camp, and so the approach will stay the same, it will, and you have got to get ready, and you can’t let fear of injury scare you away from what you believe in.”
Several key players already have been hurt in practices over the past week. The Panthers lost second-year edge rusher Nic Scourton to a torn ACL on the first day of camp. They also saw wide receiver Chris Brazzell II go down with a torn LCL.
New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Bryan Bresee tore his ACL last week. Atlanta Falcons edge rusher Jalon Walker was carted off the field with a knee injury on Tuesday.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Arizona Cardinals' Carson Beck signs autographs after practice at the NFL football team's training camp, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Beck throws during practice at the NFL football team's training camp, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people and wounded dozens, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday, as Ukraine’s depleted air defenses failed to stop any of Moscow’s incoming missiles overnight.
The barrage, which lasted about two hours, was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian missile strikes that have become almost routine this summer. Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the U.S.-made Patriot systems, the sole air defense weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Zelenskyy has pleaded with other countries, especially the U.S., to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war. Failing that, he wants to make Patriot ammunition in Ukraine or win permission from Elon Musk to use his Starlink satellite communications system to guide strikes inside Russia that can hit its missile launchers.
It's unclear how many interceptors Ukraine has left. Zelenskyy said after a Russian attack Friday night that air defenses shot down only one ballistic missile “solely because there are no missiles for the Patriots.” Supplies of defensive missiles for Ukraine in the first half of this year fell to one-third of the 2025 level, Zelenskyy said.
“Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday on social media. “It is very important for our partners to understand that delays in supplying them, or a reluctance to hand over anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction.”
The targets hit in the barrage included a brewery, a warehouse for construction material, and a mail sorting office that had nothing to do with the war, Zelenskyy said. But Russia's Defense Ministry said the businesses had military ties.
Thursday was set as an official day of mourning for the 17 people killed, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's regional military administration. In addition to the dead, at least 44 people were injured.
With U.S.-led peace efforts apparently stalled, Ukraine has stepped up its deep strikes on key Russian targets such as oil refineries to try to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate. Zelenskyy has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump but Putin has refused.
In its latest attack on facilities for Russia’s biggest online retailer Wildberries, Ukrainian drones hit a warehouse in the Tula region south of Moscow, the company and the region’s governor said.
Ukraine has struck over a dozen Wildberries facilities in under three weeks, saying the company provides goods that can be used by the military. Kyiv is also keen to unsettle the Russian public with high-profile attacks.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces downed 475 Ukrainian drones overnight over 16 Russian regions, as well as in illegally annexed Crimea and the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles, four other missiles identified as either hypersonic Zircon or supersonic Onik cruise missiles, and 115 drones, many of them jet-powered and harder to stop due to their speed, Ukrainian authorities said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it struck transport, logistics and distribution centers involved in war-related activity, four of which were in Kyiv.
“The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately — retail warehouses, food storage facilities, logistics hubs, enterprises, building materials warehouses,” Zelenskyy adviser Serhii Beskrestnov, said on Facebook.
It was not immediately possible to independently reconcile the different Russian and Ukrainian accounts of the military value of the targets.
Kyiv warehouse worker Mykhailo Hukov said an air raid warning that included a ballistic missile threat sounded just after midnight.
“So everyone started running,” he told The Associated Press. “I turned everyone around so they wouldn’t go back inside for their backpacks.”
In an underground shelter minutes later, they heard “very loud explosions.”
Ukraine’s largest private postal operator, Nova Poshta, said a Russian cluster munition destroyed one of its sorting centers in Kyiv.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the center was “storing and distributing dual-use goods, including those used in the production of long- and medium-range uncrewed aerial vehicles, as well as robotic systems and electronic warfare systems.” It claimed that two other logistics centers in the Kyiv region stored drones or components for drones.
Separately, Russia said its forces hit three bulk carriers on the Black Sea south of Odesa that it claimed were transporting Ukrainian weapons and military equipment. Ukrainian officials didn't comment on that claim.
Ivan Braga, a 46-year-old truck driver from Moldova who was in Kyiv during the attack, said he and a colleague ran from their vehicle when it was struck by shrapnel in a blast wave.
“We didn’t even have time to grab our documents or anything else,” Braga told AP. “I couldn’t believe it. I’d already been in Kyiv and had heard explosions before, but nothing like today.”
One of the companies that came under heavy fire was Epicentr, one of Ukraine’s largest retail and construction chains. It said in a statement on Facebook that “in minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had built over decades.” One employee was killed and three others were wounded.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Epicenter logistics center handled order processing, sorting, storing, and delivery of dual-use goods and components for drone production.
The director of a factory that makes drones for the Russian military was seriously injured when his car exploded in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, news reports said Wednesday.
Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalized after the explosion late Tuesday just outside the city 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) east of Moscow, the state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said.
His factory, Uraldronzavod, manufactured the Upyr, a cheap and simple drone that was popular with troops for the protection it offers against jamming.
Russian officials made no comment, but authorities previously have blamed Ukraine for a string of bombings and other attacks targeting military officials.
AP reporters Illia Novikov, Volodymyr Yurchuk and Dan Bashakov in Kyiv contributed.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a food warehouse near Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Firefighters examine a fragment of a Russian missile after air strikes at a food warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a food warehouse near Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A firefighter puts out a fire after Russian missiles hit a food warehouse near Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A postal worker clears the debris at the damaged Nova Poshta postal warehouse after Russian missiles strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
