While baseball is and always will be my favorite sport, I am also among the majority of the sports fan population that is excited that football season has finally started. It’s been a long six months with no OBJ catches, Aaron Rodgers Hail Mary passes or Von Miller sacks.
But that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have waited a few more weeks until this past weekend’s opening night to finally watch some top 10-worthy plays. It may seem nice that you finally had some more options to click through on the TV on a Saturday afternoon throughout August when the NFL preseason started, but in all honesty, was it really worth it?
Your favorite players don’t need those games. Tom Brady doesn’t need any snaps under pressure to be ready for week 1. Marshawn Lynch, no matter how long of a retirement he had, doesn’t need to carry the ball one single yard to be ready to play for the Raiders. And, as much as I was to see Rob Gronkowski play at least one play without getting hurt before I draft him in the first round in fantasy again, it’s not worth it.
Those few weeks of preseason games are not worth the injuries. Odell Beckham Jr., one of the best players in the game, twisted his ankle, and while he’s not expected to miss much time, it could have been worse. We’ve seen it before. Tony Romo broke a bone in his back in the 2016 preseason and essentially lost his job because of it. (He recovered by midseason but Dak Prescott wasn’t going anywhere.) Most recently, the Super Bowl champion Patriots lost their number one receiver Julian Edelman, who tore his ACL in a preseason game and is out for the entire season.
The fact is that football is a contact sport. You can’t remove that from the essential requirements of the game, unless we want to watch a bunch of overly-muscled men playing two-hand touch. No thanks. So again, why risk the injury in a preseason game that does not matter, when a player can get his body in shape during practice?
Football isn’t the same as baseball. In the MLB, spring training is necessary. There are more players vying for spots on smaller rosters, and starters from last season aren’t necessarily guaranteed a spot on an opening day roster. In the NFL, a starter from last season is pretty much guaranteed a job the next year, barring extraneous circumstances. Ben Roethlisberger, Larry Fitzgerald and Derek Carr don’t need to prove themselves to earn a spot. Their experience has earned it.
I’ll admit, NFL preseason games are important for a few guys per team. Whether it’s at quarterback, or running back or even linebacker, every team has a few players that are fighting for a spot on the roster. Yes, the preseason games are important for these players. But I ask yet again, is it worth it? Is it at all possible for these players to compete at game-day levels, and fight for their positions, during practice? Absolutely.
The bottom line is that the only reason the NFL keeps preseason games is because of ticket sales. A ticket to a preseason game has the same face value as a regular season ticket, and that’s to watch the big name athletes play maybe three snaps. Maybe. Why would the NFL risk losing that much revenue? It wouldn’t.
Go ahead, be excited for football season! It means great plays, great friends and great food. (Oh, is it just my family that throws football parties every Sunday? What a shame.) But, maybe think about waiting for the actual season, when the games matter.
Why the NFL preseason isn’t important
Sierra Trujillo