Normally, you don’t want to find yourself in agreement with Jeremy Shockey. The New York Giants’ tight end, while a valuable player, also is something of a caveman. But on the subject of preseason football, Shockey’s recent comment that two-a-day practices and four preseason games are a “debacle” and “dangerous” is the only logical position to take.
Of course, the NFL isn’t listening, not when the telecast of a preseason game can attract 7 million viewers, which is what happened a week ago. There’s far too much money to be made, so the games will continue. And they also will continue to be unnecessarily dangerous, as we saw Sunday night in the game between the Bengals and Redskins.
Only four minutes in, Clinton Portis suffered a partial dislocation of his left shoulder. The starters weren’t scheduled to play more than 15 plays, and they didn’t; the starting offensive unit took 13, to be exact. But that was long enough for Portis to get hurt. He got crunched while making a tackle after a Mark Brunell pass was intercepted. So Portis got hurt making an earnest effort on a worthless play he shouldn’t even have been involved in during a meaningless game. One would think Portis will be ready to start the season, but we’re talking about an injured shoulder on a running back.
It’s not news that football players get hurt. And none of the injuries the Redskins suffered was as gruesome or significant as, say, the blast to the knee of Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer in that playoff game against the Steelers in January.
But it’s worth getting hurt in the playoffs because it’s the playoffs. It is unspeakably unnecessary to get hurt in the preseason because it’s nothing.
