Pre-Season

I know that there's a pre-season game tonight. I won't be able to watch it, and I really don't care. The reason I don't care, obviously, is not that I don't care about the Steelers, but because the pre-season is a gigantic waste of my time.

The gameplans are vanilla, the starters play a maxium of two quarters a game (usually in the third game and they hardly play at all in games 1 and 4), and even the coaches don't really care if they win or lose.

And, by the time it gets to the 3rd and 4th quarters and I'm watching Shane Boyd trying to scramble around and complete a check-down pass to Cedrick Humes, I've already lost interest. And the worst part is that the Steelers charge full price for pre-season games. A buddy of mine once had to spend three weeks in Indianapolis. One night, the Colts were playing a pre-season home game and my buddy's ticket was $15. For $15, he got to see Manning, James, and Harrison for 2 quarters, see the RCA Dome (just to say that he saw it, really, I mean it's an ugly building), and had his entertainment covered for the night.

I'd pay $15 to see a pre-season game. But not $56 or whatever it is now. And I'm pretty sure that the Steelers have charged full price for pre-season games since Heinz Field opened, so it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we won Super Bowl XL. Had I mentioned we won the Super Bowl? Well, we did.

The pre-season exists as a revenue stream for the NFL and as a resource for coaches and GMs to figure out what guys are going to be allocated to the practice squad and NFL Europe. In theory, it's also supposed to show what your 2nd stringers are made of, in case one of your starters goes down. That's why I say Cowher should throw all 2nd string guys out at the beginning of the game. He'll really see what they're made of in that situation. And that's what exhibition games are for. You can run crazy scenarios like, "What if all our starters went down with injuries? How would we fare against the rest of the league?" Of course, it's not really an accurate measure, since all the teams you're playing aren't playing to win and using vanilla schemes and 2nd string guys themselves. But I think it'd be fun.

I seriously doubt that Whisenhunt actually drafts up a gameplan for the pre-season games. I imagine Ben in the huddle, saying, "Okay. First and second downs, we run 'Willie right, Willie left.' It's third down? Huh. I thought there were too many receivers in this huddle. Okay. Nate, I want you to run like hell when I say 'hut.' If I see that you beat the guy covering you and he doesn't have help over the top, I'll throw it as far as I can and close my eyes. Cedrick... you just wanna run a post? I've seen you run them in practice. You're good at them. Cool. New guy... beat up his baby's mama... Santonio, right. Run a slant. You're the hot route on this. If they blitz, I'm throwing it to you. Verron, stay back and block in case they blitz. If they don't, hang around. If I start running around like crazy, I might have to flip the ball to you. That's it. Oh yeah! We have four receivers! Dude, you're not making the team, so I don't care what you do. Why don't you get to the middle of the field, then run around in circles, shouting vodoo curses at the defense and waving your arms. That should give Cedrick enough of a distraction to get open. Okay. Break!"

Yeah, the pre-season's the one time the coaches and the league basically say, "Suck it up and deal. This is about money." And I'm fine with the fact that, during this four week window, they turn a deaf ear to the complaints of the fans and players. I mean, it could be worse. It could be hockey (though I'm starting to get stoked about the Penguins. We have a dude that's part of the Russian mafia on our team. Like that's not going to scare the rest of the Russians in the league just a litte.)

Finally, I'm tired of players saying the pre-season's too long. If you're afraid to get hurt YOU SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING FOOTBALL. That's like a dude that juggles knives for a living saying that he's not going to practice anymore because he lost two fingers. YOU'RE JUGGLING FRICKIN' KNIVES!!!!! IT'S DANGEROUS!

If nothing else, make like T.O. and fake an injury. And, player that's already bitching doesn't understand that the pre-season will never, ever get any shorter. Plus which, if you already got injured, wouldn't you now want the pre-season to be longer so you could heal? Finally, Clinton Portis is belly-aching about his shoulder (if that makes any sense) and he got injured on the first play of the first game of the pre-season. Again, he should be hoping the pre-season is longer so that he can get well for the games that really count. Well, the games that really count are in January, not September, but I digress.

And finally (I'll shut up after this, I promise) I have something to say to every football player that complains about the pre-season: You're playing a violent game. People get in hurt when they play this game. It's unavoidable. You're also getting paid millions of dollars to play this game. I sell software and don't get paid millions of dollars. I barely get paid thousands of dollars. Every time I go to make a cold call, I know that I could break my hand while dialing. But you have to take that chance. After all, we're all professionals here.

And, if I had a stripper pole in my basement, I'd want to spend a little down time "healing" before the season starts anyway.