The NFL preseason is in full swing, with training camps more than a week old and real football right around the corner. Let’s take a look at some of the bigger story lines and developments around the league:

■ In three cities, there’s only one story that matters: “How’s the rookie quarterback looking?’’

So far, none of the three first-round quarterbacks — the Rams’ Jared Goff (first overall), the Eagles’ Carson Wentz (second), and the Broncos’ Paxton Lynch (26th) — has been named the starter. But recent NFL history shows that it would be unusual if they didn’t start a significant amount of games in their rookie season.

Of the 14 quarterbacks drafted in the first or second round since 2012, nine of them were Week 1 starters as rookies, 11 of them started double-digit games, and six of them started all 16 games. The only ones not to get significant action as rookies were Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Osweiler, who were stuck behind entrenched veterans, and Johnny Manziel, who was a train wreck on and off the field.

■ In Denver, Lynch will eventually take over for the retired Peyton Manning. The question is how long Mark Sanchez and Trevor Siemian can hold him off — if they can at all.

Broncos coach Gary Kubiak is taking it slowly with Lynch, having him work with the rookies and backups while Sanchez and Siemian split the work with the first team.

But Sanchez is merely a placeholder and Siemian is a fringe NFL quarterback. Here’s betting that Lynch is the Broncos’ starting quarterback at some point in September, if not for Week 1.

■ In Philadelphia, the Eagles have been clear that Sam Bradford is the starter, Chase Daniel the backup, and Wentz the third-stringer. Considering Wentz’s limited number of starts in college and the jump in competition level from the Football Championship Subdivision, the Eagles have it all set up for Wentz to redshirt this year and not have to worry about playing before he’s ready.

The three quarterbacks also seem to be getting along OK after Bradford threw a hissy fit when Wentz was drafted.

“Sam’s been great,’’ Wentz said. “He was once the top draft pick. He’s been through it all. There’s lots of things we’ve talked about. It’s a really good room for me to not only grow mentally in the playbook, but also off the field and everything. It’s been great.’’

That said, will team owner Jeffrey Lurie, coach Doug Pederson, and the Eagles fan base have the patience to let Wentz sit if Bradford doesn’t play well and the season starts to slip away? The temptation will be overwhelming to throw Wentz into the fire and see how he handles himself. The Jaguars planned on sitting Blake Bortles behind Chad Henne in 2014, and Bortles ended up starting 13 games.

■ And in Los Angeles, Rams coach Jeff Fisher nonchalantly called Case Keenum his starter on Wednesday.

“[Keenum] made some really good throws,’’ Fisher told reporters. “I mean, some really good throws throughout practice. That’s what you expect out of your starter.’’

No offense to Keenum, but we’re not buying this one. Fisher might be manufacturing a little drama for the “Hard Knocks’’ cameras, or he simply wants to make it seem like Goff earned the job when he is named the starter.

■ In Cleveland, new coach Hue Jackson will choose between Robert Griffin III and Josh McCown as the starting quarterback before the first preseason game, but this situation could work itself out naturally. RG3 will obviously be the Week 1 quarterback, and the Browns are currently dancing with the Cowboys about a trade for McCown to replace Kellen Moore as Tony Romo’s backup. The Browns and Cowboys are balking at the trade for now, but this one makes sense for both sides and will likely happen sometime in camp.

■ And in San Francisco, new coach Chip Kelly said the competition between Colin Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert is still wide open, with their performances in the preseason games likely to be the deciding factor. While Kaepernick’s dual-threat skill set appears to be a good fit for Kelly’s offense, Gabbert is the better pocket passer and game manager.

■ Injuries are an unfortunate and unavoidable part of training camp, and already some big names have gone down. Packers receiver Jordy Nelson, who missed all of last year with an ACL injury suffered in the preseason, has Packers fans on pins and needles after suffering a “hiccup’’ to his other knee right before camp, and he has yet to practice. Bengals first-round cornerback William Jackson suffered a torn pectoral to put his season in doubt, though he could be a candidate for the IR-return designation later in the season.

49ers cornerback Eric Rogers, a former CFL star hoping to catch on in the NFL, tore his ACL last week and is out for the year. And Ravens third-round pass rusher Bronson Kaufusi will spend his rookie season on injured reserve after breaking his ankle in Thursday’s practice.

■ And in the most fascinating story of camp, the Chargers and No. 3 overall pick Joey Bosa still haven’t come to terms on his rookie contract, even though the new collective bargaining agreement was supposed to do away with rookie holdouts.

At issue is the timing of payouts of Bosa’s signing bonus — he wants it all up front, and the team wants to spread it out. While I would expect Bosa to sign soon, the team has only until Tuesday to trade him (highly unlikely), he can hold out as long as Week 10 and still play in 2016 (equally unlikely), and in the event he sits out the full year, the Chargers would retain his rights until next year’s draft, at which point he would re-enter the draft.

DONE DEALS

A fine time for them to cash in

Over the past week, we also saw several new contracts for veteran players (though none in New England, of course):

■ In the desert, the Cardinals signed cornerback/safety Tyrann Mathieu to a unique six-year contract that gives the team several “outs’’ along the way. All told, it’s a six-year, $64 million contract, but realistically it’s two separate two-year contracts (only one of which is guaranteed) and two one-year contracts (neither of which is guaranteed).

Mathieu received an eye-opening $15.5 million signing bonus, and salaries of $1 million this year and $4.75 million next year that are fully guaranteed. All told he will make $21.5 million the next two years, which is a nice return for someone coming off his second torn ACL.

The 2018 and 2019 seasons become guaranteed if Mathieu is still on the roster in March of 2018. He’ll again make about $22 million over those two seasons. Then Mathieu has nonguaranteed salaries of $10.75 million and $9.25 million on the books for 2020 and 2021.

Mathieu gave up some freedom with this deal, but he got $62.5 million in new money ($12.5 million per year) and did well for himself in the short term, receiving the largest signing bonus ever for a safety, besting Devin McCourty by $500,000.

■ In Kansas City, the Chiefs made a bit of an odd move by giving offensive tackle Eric Fisher, a perennial underachiever since he was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2013, a new four-year extension through 2021. In practical terms, it’s a six-year, $63.3 million contract with $22 million fully guaranteed.

Why did the Chiefs give Fisher a new contract when he still had two years to go on his previous deal? It wasn’t for cap space now — the Chiefs gained only about $206,000 in cap space for this year. But it does give the Chiefs some cap flexibility in future years, as explained by Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com.

The Chiefs still believe in Fisher as their franchise left tackle, even if he hasn’t proven to be one so far, and this contract reflects the reality that the Chiefs would have triggered the fifth-year option and franchise tag on Fisher. So instead of locking themselves into rigid salaries, this new contract lowers Fisher’s cap numbers by $2 million to $2.5 million in 2017 and 2018.

“Essentially all the Chiefs did was pre-buy the franchise tag and assume the guaranteed risk now in return for cap flexibility,’’ Fitzgerald wrote.

■ And in a move that should pique Rob Gronkowski’s interest, the 49ers signed four-time All-Pro linebacker NaVorro Bowman to a seven-year, $77 million contract. The 49ers signed Bowman to the new deal even though the team had no burning need to do so — Bowman still had three years remaining on his previous contract, and the 49ers had more than $47 million in cap space before the deal.

Two possible reasons for the new deal? The 49ers need to meet minimum spending requirements, and/or they simply wanted to reward their team leader.

COSTLY LOSSES

Rulings may hurt union’s leverage

The NFL Players Association fights strongly on behalf of its players, but sometimes those fights come with risks. And two recent lawsuits involving Tom Brady and Adrian Peterson could not have turned out worse for the union.

On Thursday, in a resounding 3-0 vote, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned a lower court’s ruling to vacate Peterson’s six-game suspension for domestic violence. The circumstances of the lawsuit were vastly different from the league’s lawsuit against Brady, but the end result is the same — the appeals judges overturning a lower court and ruling that Article 46 of the collective bargaining agreement gives commissioner Roger Goodell wide-ranging powers to punish players who violate the “integrity of the game.’’

In this case, the NFLPA challenged the ruling of arbitrator Harold Henderson, who was chosen by Goodell and upheld Goodell’s six-game punishment. The NFL will not seek to keep Peterson off the field, but will be collecting three 2014 game checks from Peterson for a total of about $2.1 million. And the league has yet another resounding legal victory on the books.

“The parties bargained to be bound by the decision of the arbitrator, and the arbitrator acted within his authority,’’ the Eighth Circuit wrote on Thursday. “Allowing the Commissioner or the Commissioner’s designee to hear challenges to the Commissioner’s decisions may present an actual or apparent conflict of interest for the arbitrator. But the parties bargained for this procedure, and the Association consented to it.’’

The Peterson decision comes on top of the Brady decision, the combination of which significantly strengthen Goodell’s disciplinary powers and weaken the union’s bargaining power when it comes time to negotiate the next CBA. Now the NFLPA must decide if it’s even worth the financial resources to pursue both cases with the US Supreme Court.

For what it’s worth, the Brady, Peterson, and Maurice Clarett case of 2004 all turned out the same way — with the union winning in district court, and the NFL winning upon appeal.

ETC.

When school delays education

Bill Belichick spent several minutes Thursday talking about second-year safety Jordan Richards, and how much catching up he had to do as a rookie because of the NFL’s “graduation rule,’’ which prevents players from participating in offseason workouts (except for rookie minicamp) until their college semester has finished.

For players who come from schools on the trimester system and don’t end school until June — Stanford, Oregon State, Washington, and UCLA among them — it means missing crucial orientation time, having to learn the playbook on your own, and play catch-up in your first training camp.

So I asked Belichick if his draft evaluations are affected much by whether a prospect comes from a trimester system, and found his answer enlightening.

“I think you take a little longer view than that, but I don’t think there’s any question that it slows them down a little bit,’’ he said. “I’m not saying Jordan didn’t catch up. There’s pretty good competition at that position so I don’t know that it would’ve changed. I’m not saying he would’ve been a 90 percent play time guy had he been here from Day 1, but it certainly didn’t help him any. If that was the answer, we’d tell them all to just stay home and show up in the middle of June. I don’t think that’s the answer, but it is what it is. If that’s where you draft a kid from, then you just live with it.’’

Extra points

Congratulations to the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2016, inducted Saturday night in Canton, Ohio — Brett Favre, Marvin Harrison, Tony Dungy, Orlando Pace, Kenny Stabler, Dick Stanfel, and Eddie DeBartolo. Dungy’s induction is particularly noteworthy. “Coach Dungy was the first African-American head coach, along with the Bears coach Lovie Smith, to win a conference championship. He was first African-American head coach to win a Super Bowl,’’ said John Wooten of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which seeks equal opportunities for minority coaches. “Coach Dungy has now broken another barrier as he becomes the first African-American head coach to be inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has also developed an impressive coaching tree. He has developed a number of Hall of Fame-caliber players. We are proud to stand with coach Tony Dungy.’’ . . . Receiver Moritz Boehringer, the Vikings’ fifth-round pick who became the first person drafted straight from Germany into the NFL, is certainly getting his steps in every day. In a video series with the money transferring company TransferWise, Boehringer reveals that he hasn’t bought or rented a car in the United States, and instead he just walks 3 miles to and from the Vikings’ facility every day for training camp. That’s in addition to grueling practices and workout sessions . . . This week’s Darwin Award goes to former Miami offensive line coach Jim Turner, a Braintree native who was fired by the Dolphins for his role in the Jonathan Martin bullying incident and spent three years out of football before Texas A&M gave him a career lifeline this offseason to coach the offensive line. But Turner is in hot water again, suspended by the Aggies after he and another coach led a presentation in a women’s football clinic that was littered with racy sexual innuendo. Suffice to say, Turner is not doing a very good job of taking advantage of his second opportunity.

Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolin. Material from interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.