A little over two weeks ago, I said I was very excited for preseason! I was excited that I will finally get to see some football on TV. I was excited to see several players play some exhibition football, especially the young players trying to lock up a roster spot. Then injuries started to take place. Several players have suffered significant injuries. New England Patriots, the team that I root for, lost their first-round pick, Isaiah Wynn for the year. The Washington Redskins lost their second-round pick, Derrius Guice for all of 2018. Guice was expected to be the lead back for the Redskins' offense this year. The Redskins haven't had a good solid running game since the 2012 and 2013 seasons, when Robert Griffen III was the starting quarterback and Alfred Morris was the featured back. They were ready to turn the tables around with Derrius Guice, who won't be with them for this upcoming season.
If you are wondering why can't the NFL survive with only two teams suffering major injuries, then you need to know that the Redskins and the Patriots aren't the only teams who suffered injuries so far in the 2018 preseason. San Francisco 49ers after their first preseason game of the year had to deal with six players, who suffered different kinds of injuries in that game. Two of those six players included Soloman Thomas, who the 49ers drafted in 2017 with the third overall pick, and George Kittle, who is expected by many to have a big year statistically this season. I'm one hundred percent sure that Kyle Shanahan, the head coach of the 49ers is extremely upset with what the preseason has done to his roster so far. It hasn't been confirmed yet if any of those players are going to miss the remainder of the season or most of it, but such injuries could affect the way they play during the season.
This is not the first year that preseason has scared teams and fanbases with injuries. Last year, the New England Patriots lost Julian Edelman in a preseason game against the Detriot Lions. A year before that, Jordy Nelson of the Green Bay Packers suffered a season-ending injury in a preseason game. That same year when Nelson suffered a season-ending injury, Tony Romo suffered an injury of his own. Yes, I know Romo had been injury-prone throughout his career and he shouldn't have played in the preseason game, but to get hurt in a meaningless game, is just so much worse than getting hurt in the regular season. That injury didn't end all of 2016 season for Romo, but it gave Dak Prescott the starting quarterback position for the first eight to ten weeks of the season. Once Dak took over and started winning games, Tony Romo's time in Dallas was over. Ultimately, that preseason injury ended Tony Romo's career.
A player's career coming to an end in a hard-fought regular season or a playoff game would hurt the player, his family, and the team, but at least the player could say that he was doing his job and his best to help his team win a game that it needed to win.
So what should we do with the preseason? Should we get rid of it completely? No, but the NFL could cut the number of preseason games from four to two, and also cut the playing time of the game. Instead of having players play full sixty minutes, let's have them play thirty minutes. Would that solve the problem of players not getting hurt in the preseason at all? No, but the chances of players getting hurt won't be as high as it is right now with the players playing four full sixty minutes of preseason games.
We all know that football is a physical sport. When players who sign up to play football for their professional careers, know what this game could do to them. However, not a single player thinks about getting hurt and having their careers end during a preseason game. Todd Gurley recently said that every player dreams of not playing in the preseason. If players don't really want to play in the preseason, then just give them more practice time. Have teams do more joint practices rather than having players put their bodies on the line in meaningless preseason games.
Again, I say cut the preseason games from four to two and cut the game time from sixty to thirty minutes. But if the players don't want to participate in the preseason game at all, then I wouldn't be upset if the NFL completely get rids of it. We want all the players of all teams to rock and roll in the first week of the season.
We can't afford to have a football season start with no Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Bress, Odell Beckham Jr., Antonio Brown, David Johnson, or other big-time players. Less preseason games mean more healthy players at the start of the regular season.
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