Preseason Games Mean Nothing...Unless it's YOUR Life!
Written by Sean Salisbury, Wednesday August 24 2011
Preseason football is a wacky thing, and when it comes to fans it’s actually comical. When their team loses in the preseason – ah! It’s only preseason – no big deal! But when their team wins – oh my goodness, we’re Super Bowl bound! And at the beginning of each year all 32 teams and their fans are optimistic; they all talk winning and Super Bowl, when in truth about a dozen don’t stand a chance going in. All this great banter for the preseason, and in essence it really doesn’t matter, does it? Records don’t matter, games don’t count and we never see a team’s best players and full game plan all preseason.
See, I told you preseason was overrated and not needed, right? Well I’m here to tell you, for all who think preseason doesn’t matter, you need to change your focus. The only thing that doesn’t matter in preseason is the preseason record.
I’m here to give you all the reasons it does matter and who it matters to. Let’s start with a team’s confidence. Winning and losing both become contagious, and as my ex-head coach Denny Green told us every preseason, “We want to win every game and we want every unit on the team – first team, second team, special teams, to win every game because we want to get used to winning, even though the record doesn’t matter. Winning while you’re in does.”
Preseason also matters for rhythm. You want the first team to psychologically feel good about what they’re doing, you want the back-ups to feel good about how they played. Because preseason is all you’ve got to gauge your team’s growth.
Injuries are important – knowing how long to play a player and when not to play him. Coaches, because they are creatures of habit, attitude and superstition, need to find out what they’ve got to ease their insecurities – whether they’ll tell you that or not.
Preseason is also a time to build team unity and when leadership rears its head. Things the fans can’t see but everybody in-house can.
Most teams going into preseason have probably all but 4 or 5 roster spots set. They know not only who they believe is going to make the team, but also who they want to make the team.
So it’s a monumental time for those 4 or 5 guys trying to survive.
So while most of us brush off preseason as just an appetizer to get to the main course, let’s never forget that lives, careers and families are at stake with this so-called useless preseason that nobody cares about, because there are players and their families that will never get another chance to live this dream and earn a living playing football. Just imagine at 22 years old someone telling you that a career you’ve lived your life for, you are no longer good enough to participate in. So when you sit around and laugh at preseason, sure you can laugh at the record of your team, but don’t underestimate the impact that the preseason has on your team, the coaching staff, the decision-makers and those whose lives and careers will be changed – some for the worse and some for the better.
So maybe as you watch preseason, you will have a better understanding of just how epic it can be for those who are participating.
Sean Salisbury, former NFL quarterback and NFL analyst for ESPN, covers sports for www.playerpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @SeanUnfiltered.
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