"If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, you'll be hard to beat." Hershel Walker
You can’t see me but I am rubbing my hands in anticipation for we are standing on the very brink of football season. We’ve successfully made it through the hard months and finally August is here, bringing us a special time in the life of your football team.
Before I get into the Preseason, let’s do a little backtracking to get us up to this point. After the 2010 Super Bowl, we watched teams maneuver their players in various ways; they cut some players loose while they lost some to free agency. They gained players through free agency and through the Draft. And now all those new and old players need to find a time to get to know each other and gel so that the coming year will bring victory after victory.
The method that all NFL teams use is all the same—Training Camps! Training Camps are, obviously, to promote training and optimal performance but they are also a great way to gauge how everyone is going to get along. The team now has a variety of big personalities from the veteran BMOC who made record-breaking performances to the bad-ass rookie that kicked ass in college and now was offered a big fat contract with bonus. All must be taken into account.
Training Camps begin usually around the end of July, spanning into early August. Their importance, on the surface, is to get these bums back into shape. I don’t mean that the football players are actually bums but you tell me what you would look like after 6 months of vacation and we’ll go from there. Yes, these guys have all been off frolicking for the last 6 months and training camps are the place where they have to put the pedal to the metal. Eating right, getting back into shape, working out, weigh-ins, mingling—this is the regimen for all players during this time.
It is also a great time to start practicing. With preseason nipping at their heels it’s vitally important that each player starts getting back into the groove of their position. For the rookies and the newest players, they must also deal with memorizing a new system and finding their place among the veterans and the NFL coaching staff. And then there’s the speed of the game. The action on the football field in the NFL is fast, much faster than any college player has experienced before. If a coach does not want his rookies standing around in disbelief, it would be well for him to simulate some games using real time.
Rookies are dealing with a lot of things right about now. Just a few months ago they were college football gods while now they are at the bottom of the food chain. Just because the team owners believe this kid might have the goods does not impress the veterans who are already tried and true. Therefore it is imperative that the rookie gets off on a good start, takes his hazing like a man, and performs his ass off on the field. Also, and this is much more of a problem, the rookie, who in all
likelihood was completely broke in college, was just given a huge contract, complete with bonus, making that rookie worth so many millions of dollars. This influx of wealth has been known to cause complete chaos with many young men, thus, most NFL teams provide training in…well…life. With so much money and fame, it is not surprising that it can go to their heads and they end up making bad decisions. This special rookie training includes how to handle the money, how to handle certain situations, how to handle family members, etc. I think it’s a really good idea.Now just because a player was picked up by a team does not necessarily mean that they have a bona-fide position there. In fact, training camp is very much like an audition, allowing each player on the team to try out for various positions on the field. By the time that the regular season rolls around, each team can only have 53 players on the roster which entails some weeding out of undesirables. If players can handle the rigor of the summer training camp then they might well make it further.
Another way to audition players for positions occurs in the Preseason. The Preseason is always in August and it includes practice games between the teams. Each team graduates from playing scrimmage against itself to playing other teams in the NFL in games that do not count. When I say “do not count,” I mean exactly that. Preseason games are just practice and so all wins, loses, statistics, etc. mean nothing. Do you remember a couple years ago when the Colts won the Super Bowl? Well that year they lost every single preseason game. Every single one! After that though they kicked it up a notch and managed to go all the way.
Preseason is tough time for me. I love, love, love football but for some reason, watching preseason games is almost not fun at all. The problem is that they are treated like real games by the networks—so you have the same commentators, the same catchy music, the same everything but the game, in essence, doesn’t count. Not only that, but I’ll see a game on, get all excited, start watching it and then bam! All the good players come out in the second quarter. WTF! Trust me, I’m not bitching at the NFL. Preseason games are good practice, especially for those same rookies that wouldn’t know real speed until it hit them in the face.
But for people like me, preseason is just agony. Most teams allow their regular starters to begin the game…just like normal. However, this does not last for long and for good reason. If preseason games don’t count, why on earth would a good coach leave his best players in the game, only for them to get injured? Also if preseason games are a perfect way to see which players are going to keep up and which can’t, why then would they leave only one set of players in the game? Due to the possibilities of injuries and the fact that roster decisions must be made soon prompt coaches to filter in the whole team during preseason which can lead to some pretty boring games. Just saying.
Although I am definitely hard on the Preseason period (I would prefer one less preseason game—there are 5—and maybe one more regular season game??), I still enjoy
it being on. I get an electric thrill when I hear that Monday Night Football tune and see that large, green expanse lay out before me. The Preseason is just like a lovely amuse bouche right before the exhilarating main course. The whittling of the teams continues and by the second Sunday in September (try saying that 5 times really fast), the final 53 players for each team will be chosen!
