Can You Explain Preseason Football

The NFL plays four so call preseason games and after all the games played the starters just maybe played a total 25 minutes if that much.  The amount of money players are paid the NFL teams would love to start the season with healthy players.  Todd Gurley is a prime example of a player being protected to try not get any further injury to his already repaired knee.

What happened the first games of the season?  Let's start by looking at the Detroit- San Diego game.  Detroit had nine defensive lineman on their 53 man roster because they knew they needed to pressure Philip Rivers and all game every series they had three new lineman going after Rivers.

The first three series Detroit dominated the line of scrimmage but by the middle of the second quarter their lineman started giving out of gas and the entire second half Rivers never pressured went 25-27 for 260 yards and two touchdown tosses plus they scored twice rushing the ball.

Detroit was not in shape to play a full game and the only reason I can think of is just running does not get you in shape when on every play you collide with a 300 pound person across the line 40 times NFL  players are not ready.  Why not?  Almost every team has been practicing since around July 29th

Sixteen weeks from now and Detroit comes up one game short from making the playoffs they can point to the season opener when they simply were not prepared to play a full game.  All these people whether players or coaches get paid big Bucks to take the first three of four regular season just to get ready to finish the season.  When the season nears the 12 game mark and you see teams streaking with several wins in a row think back to see if in the first game of the season they wilted in the second half in the first game and just think what they can do when in game shape.

Other than somebody falling across someone knees which is unavoidable look at every teams injury list and I think most are out of shape injuries.  So what good did it do to save these players if they are not prepared to play a full game opening day and get hurt?

By the way Philip Rivers two TD passes against Detroit ties him for the San Diego all time touchdown passing list with Dan Fouts at 254. Fouts is in the Hall of Fame.