The Rookies

Look! Football! It's sort of real!

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It’s a longstanding tradition for football fans to complain about the boring snoozefests that are NFL preseason games. A typical list of complaints against them would go something like this: Too little playing time for the starters everyone comes to games to see, too much time for scrubs who won’t even make the final roster, the games don’t actually count, etc.

Look closer though and you can definitely find enough reasons to at least pay attention to these games if you’re a serious football fan, many of them similar to the reasons why actual NFL coaches and players find the preseason valuable.

Here are six of them.

1. Judging the rookies. By the time the preseason begins, every team’s draft picks have been completely picked apart and analyzed for their performance in college games, combines, minicamps, and training camps. Even though the preseason level of competition is far below that of the regular season, exhibition games allow fans their first real look at the players their teams have just spent millions of dollars to sign and train in a format even remotely similar to an actual NFL game.

2. Know them before they’re famous. Watching preseason games is actually probably the best way for a fan to predict which players will “come out of nowhere” to help the team, whether that player is Trent Edwards, Fred Jackson, Ahmad Bradshaw, Ryan Grant, or any other of the various ex-backups, second-day draft picks, and walk-ons who’ve gone on to earn starting roles in the NFL.

3. One last chance to see that guy. You know that player you liked in college? The one who racked up a lot of yards or kept making key plays but who just wasn’t cut out for the NFL? Preseason games are very often the last games where you can see these guys play before they fade back into anonymity. Or the CFL.

4. There’s not as much at stake. The same reason that many people cite to describe preseason games as boring also happens to be why they’re so enjoyable. You can actually watch a game without being overwhelmed by the same emotions that can make watching a normal football game so stressful for fans, because these are games whose results aren’t important.

5.At least it’s football. Even if the players aren’t as well known or the stakes as high, it’s still a relief to be able to watch football again at a time of year when there just aren’t that many major sports to watch besides baseball.

6. This.

Via You Been Blinded.