NFL Preseason and injuries

The cry has gone up that the NFL's system of 4-5 preseason games needs to be shortened because too many (star) players are being hurt.

News flash - professional football is a violent game. To paraphrase the old adage: it is not a contact sport, it is a collision sport.

A bit of history here. In the old days - pre 1980's - NFL players used to take the entire summer off. The players also made less money so they had other jobs. They would get woefully out of shape and needed a 6-week exhibition season just to get into shape. Growing up, a guy next door played football so well that he ended up playing tackle for the Miami Dolphins. I can still recall the images of him coming to his parents' home for a week prior to training camp and trying to get back into shape running up and down our road.

In 1978, the NFL expaned from 14 regular season games to 16. Simultaneously, they decreased the preseason schedule from 6 to the current 4 games. A rise in salaries in the 1980s - due in part to the 3-year presence of the USFL - also led to a rise in workout ethic. Players stayed in shape throughout the off-season and teams began conducting mini-camps and other "voluntary" workouts. We started hearing about Roger Craig's hillside runs and teammate Jerry Rice's off-season regimens.

The fans want their stars to be healthy for the regular season. That is understandable. If I were a Redskin fan, I would be upset that Clinton Portis was injured on the first series in the first preseason game. But shortening or eliminating the preseason does not solve the injury crisis.

LeCharles Bentley - former Buckeye All-American - and current Cleveland Brown, was injured on the first play of the first PRACTICE of training camp. He is out for the year. Others, such as Minnesota safety Tank Williams, were injured in practice and lost for the season. Point? Injuries happen in football all of the time.

Imagine this - the NFL eliminates the preseason games or reduces them so that Clinton Portis does not play prior to the regular season. Then, on the first series of the first regular season game, he goes down with a serious injury. I believe that Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post (see link above) and ESPN Radio's Mike Greenberg would write an article about how the preseason games are necessary so that the players receive some "game conditioning" and are used to being hit. Perhaps preseason critics would then argue that Portis would not have been hurt if he had played in some exhibition games.

Jim Lachey, another Buckeye legend, was recently on the radio talking about training camp. He said the one year he held out of camp - and this was years into his career - on the day he returned to camp, he noticed a big difference in his skill level versus those that had been in camp. The message was that even if you are an All-Pro caliber player, you need practice time. If you need practice time, you probably are going to have blocking and tackling. If you have that, you will probably have injuries. The violence of football produces predictable results.

What if Portis would have been hurt during an inter-squad scrimmage versus an exhibition game? Would there be an article in the Washington Post about practice? (Practice? We are talking about practice?). I doubt it.

Players in the NFL are going to get injured. Each day, each week, each game, each season. Your number is going to come up sometime, someday. Clinton Portis had his come up in Preseason game No. 1. Had there been no preseason, it may have come up in practice the next day. Or, maybe it would have come up five minutes into Game No. 1. You can make all the changes to the schedule you want but you cannot change that fact. If you do not want your stars hurt, keep them out of practice and out of the preseason. But be prepared to have a star that is rusty and susceptible to injury because of that rust.