nfl preseason is a waste of time
Why Preseason NFL is a Waste of Time
By: Andrew Ferguson
Howdy! It’s been a while but I want to take this moment to brag that I was on vacation for 10 days in Florida at the beach nonstop doing badass stuff. And I want to start by telling you how cool my wife is with this scenario:
If you’ve never spent any time on Anna Maria Island near Tampa, I highly recommend it. I’ve grown up going to a lot of different beaches and this place takes the cake on everything. But one day, we decided to hire someone to take us out on a boat. My wife found this super hot chick that owns a 17’ boat and took just us two out for the day. Captain Jess was her name and she showed us all around the island and took us places that bigger boats can’t get to. We saw dolphins, bull sharks, sting rays, manatees, terrapins and all sorts of other fish. How many wives are cool enough to book something like this? Just had to share it was pretty baller.
But we’re here to talk football, right? Well I hate to break it to any of you that are going crazy over the NFL preseason, but you’re wasting your time.
I know I should be ‘all in’ on football right now with week 1 of the preseason wrapping up… but I’m just not. These games mean absolutely nothing to a fan or the media the same way they mean to players or an organization. That’s why I chose now to go on vacation, because I knew sitting around studying preseason would not be worth my time. And for me to have any takes or opinions on what the team looked like, also means jack. However, the Atlanta Falcons gave us an all-time, generational meme in the first five minutes of their season which I’m sure will foreshadow how the next 5 months will go. So I do thank them for that. But again, I’m not overanalyzing how bad it was for such a short sample size. And I still don’t care how good Ty Simpson looked in his debut.
Every year, we endure the driest stretch in sports during the summer waiting for the famous NFL Hall of Fame Game. It’s the first sign of life for football, but once you start watching it, you immediately get bored and realize you’re still a month away from anything meaningful. Who are these guys? And will I ever see any of them again? But what’s worse than enduring one meaningless game? It’s the 3 weeks of games that follow.
Back in the 60s and 70s, a lot of players had the NFL preseason to get back into football shape. Because during the offseason, they were ripping darts, chugging beers and selling cars to make money. Once the season came around, that time was used to get back in shape and shed some pounds. Nowadays, these athletes are in peak physical form year round, and don’t need this period. And again, I know how important it is to the team and organization to get these practice reps in for a number of reasons; new coaching and schemes, rookies get exposure and playing time, new faces on new teams building chemistry… blah, blah blah. But we don’t need all of this time and game exposure on TV. How about this, give me 2 preseason games, and instead have 18 regular season games. Who’s with me??
I think of preseason football in the sense of my coworker coming up to me and showing me how ‘nasty’ his fantasy football team is. I just don’t give a fuck. Your experience is way different than the experience I’m having. And for the open roster spots these teams claim people are fighting for, realistically, it’s only 3-4 per team. They have to get from 100+ down to 53 with only a few spots realistically up for grabs that can just be figured out during training camp. I don’t need to see the Bengals trot out 14 different wide receivers when I know Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are starting week 1.
But with such a production and media coverage that goes into this, you’re not even seeing the starters for a majority of the time. It would be one thing to see your favorite players get more playing time. And maybe that’s the only time your team is visiting the city you live in. How bummed are you when you get there and they play one series or not at all? I think more teams are more worried about navigating injuries and entering the regular season healthy over everything else. We’ve already seen quite a few injuries to start the year, and all it does for me is adjust my fantasy football rankings on some of these guys. Just don’t get hurt in the preseason please!
And don’t get me started on Hard Knocks. That show is so repeated that it has lost all of its flare. Unless you’re a fan of that team and know the names of all your players, who honestly cares? Even when the Falcons were on it, it was still boring. Mainly because they suck.
Overall, I think it’s safe to say we’re ready for the season to start and I’m not a fan of the preseason as a fan. Come at me all you want and argue how important it is and all that. We’ll see if I comment back or not. You’ll thank me when we have less of this to deal with, and more meaningful regular season games. But until these players are making more money for playing more games and risking injury, we won’t see this happen for a while. But I will leave you on a positive note, I’ll still watch any preseason NFL game over the NFL Pro Bowl anyday. What a joke that has become. If you actually watch the Pro Bowl these days as a grown man, I imagine you still watch reruns of Sponge Bob. Grow up.
