Saving the Season: The Plight of the NFL Preseason

You may not really care about the NFL preseason and quite frankly most people don’t.  Many fans consider it to be nothing more than a tune up for the regular season and don’t enjoy watching players they may never see play in the regular season.  Fans hate paying the ticket prices to see these games.  But these contests do have their value.

For the players, it provides them an opportunity for them to get ready for the season in several different ways.  First, it allows them to learn the system that they will be playing in and for those players that have to play for new head coaches it is a prime opportunity to get used to the new system.  The preseason also allows the players to get in shape for the regular season and also helps to break the monotony of training camp by allowing them to hit other players than just their own guys.

No player likes to practice and play in the heat of the summer and you will find that many veteran NFL players feel that training camp and preseason games are not necessary.  Some coaching staffs feel that way as well as they let them either skip days or sit out certain practices.  This appears to not have a detrimental effect on those veterans and perhaps it allows them to rest a little bit and save themselves for the season.

Fans will complain about the ticket prices for preseason games due to having to pay the regular season ticket price to watch those second and third string players.  Why not have reduced rate tickets for preseason games?  After all it’s not a real game right?  It’s just basically a glorified practice (is what most fans would say).

And then there is the reality that preseason games are essentially meaningless.  While it is a reality it is partially true.  Take the Chicago Bears for instance.  They had a horrible preseason last year but ended up winning their division and they advanced to the doorstep of the Super Bowl.  But then again those preseason games can show you signs of things to come for the season.  Looking back at the Bears we saw that their offensive line was horrible in the preseason and sure enough that unit struggled during the regular season.  But the winless preseason was meaningless. 

So there are some take aways from the preseason and it has some value despite what some people may think.  Yes the players may or may not be those players that you will see on a regular basis on Sunday’s but if anything you get a great idea about how your team is built and how some of the decisions are made to help make your team a winner or struggle during the regular season.

So if you are a big football fan and want to see what your team is doing prior to the start of the season then it’s important that you pay attention during the preseason to see just how your favorite NFL team is built.  The games do matter.