The start of the National Football League season is less than two weeks away. It opens on a Wednesday this season when the defending Super Bowl Champions Seattle Seahawks host the team they beat in Super Bowl LX last February, the New England Patriots.
If it feels like the preseason just started and we already have only one more full week of preseason games after this weekend, it feels that way because it is.
When I joined the Oakland Raiders in 1973, the preseason consisted of six exhibition games and training camp was at least seven full weeks. The Raiders, and all 25 other NFL teams, routinely held two-a-day workouts in full pads.
Seems like a lot?
Well, it would today with athletes who play half as many preseason games and have but 16 full pad practices allowed during the duration of their summer training camp which can be as brief as four weeks.
Were six preseason games too many? Was two full pad practices five days a week too much work?
Let me tell you something. When the opening bell rang on a regular season when that was the routine for NFL teams, they were ready for the regular season. Teams had worked long hours and as many as 30 full pad practices along with six preseason games before playing a regular season game. In week one that work had paid off. Teams were at what today is called “mid-season form” before an NFL regular season ever kicked off.
Today, with the limited practices and a three-game preseason schedule, opening day still has a lot of teams looking to get up to gameday speed. Announcers will dismiss shoddy play as just the beginning stages of a season with claims they will get better real soon. “These guys will hit their stride by the fourth week,” will be a common refrain from the broadcast booth in a couple weeks.
The changes this makes in handicapping the NFL is to not judge what teams are truly the best until they play three or four regular season games. The best teams may not be ready to fully excel when the season opens following the paired down training period.
Add to that the NFL schedule makers like to put the best teams in difficult situations to open a season to enhance the possibility of them picking up a loss or two early. If the best teams get pinned with a defeat or more over the first month of a campaign, that will add to the competitive balance of their division races. The NFL is entertainment first … and close division races add to that element.
Bottom line, if your favorite team gets off to a rocky start, you can chalk it up to them just working out early kinks that used to be handled in the summer. And if your team, notoriously weak, gets a couple early wins your optimism may be overstated.
It all adds up to another entertaining NFL season.