Pay Full Price and Pray for No Injuries, Fans, It’s Preseason

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The New York Sun

Jets fans cringed last week when Chad Pennington took a hit from Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Kalvin Pearson in the teams’ first preseason game. It wasn’t Pennington’s fumble on the play that raised concerns — preseason turnovers are quickly forgotten — but Pennington’s surgically repaired throwing shoulder receiving its first punishment of the year.

Pennington and the Jets say his shoulder is fine, but New York fans can be forgiven if they’re skittish about preseason injuries. In 2003, Pennington broke his wrist when Giants linebacker Brandon Short tackled him in a preseason game. The injury forced Pennington to miss the first six games of the regular season. Giants cornerback Jason Sehorn severely injured his knee on the first kickoff return of his career in a 1998 preseason game against the Jets. Even after spending a full year rehabbing his knee, Sehorn was never the same player. In 1971, Joe Namath missed all but four regular-season games after suffering a knee injury during a preseason game when he attempted to tackle a defensive player who was running back a fumble.

Although injuries in exhibition games are unfortunate, NFL owners have little reason to change the preseason as long as it remains profitable.The owners pay the players significantly less money — a stipend of a few thousand dollars compared to regular-season salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a week for many players — but charge fans full price for preseason tickets. Fans who want tickets to all eight regular-season home games have no choice but to buy tickets to the two preseason home games that are included in season-ticket packages. Full-price tickets, parking, and concessions mean owners are making huge amounts of money on games that don’t count, featuring star players sitting on the bench after the first quarter.

Fans could simply refuse to buy season tickets, but unless huge numbers of fans followed that path, most owners wouldn’t even notice. Many NFL teams, including the Jets and Giants, have long waiting lists for season tickets. Any fan who decides not to renew his season tickets because he doesn’t want to pay full price for two preseason games will simply be replaced by another fan who’s willing to pay.

Although few fans enjoy spending money to watch exhibitions, television ratings show that fans still enjoy the games from their couches.The bulk of the NFL’s $3.7 billion in annual television revenue comes from the regular season and the playoffs, but the preseason is also attractive to the league’s TV partners: NBC’s coverage of the Hall of Fame Game reached 10.6 million viewers.

Exhibition games give little-known rookies the opportunity to prove themselves, but most veterans say the games aren’t worth the risk of injury. Coaches could avoid major injuries by keeping their best players out of exhibition games in the first place, but NFL coaches think the preseason prepares players in a way that practice can’t, and that the preseason is the best tool they have for evaluating which players should make the roster.

Although every team pulls its starters from exhibition games before halftime, no team has taken the approach that some veterans favor, simply sitting top players for the entire preseason. Even two quarterbacks coming off major injuries, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints and Daunte Culpepper of the Miami Dolphins, played in their teams’ preseason openers.

Because coaches and owners want to keep the preseason as is, and fans still buy the tickets and watch the games on TV, the players’ union would need to make exhibition games an issue in negotiating the collective-bargaining agreement in order to force the owners into shortening the preseason. The union could seek a clause that veterans with a certain number of years’ experience can opt out of the preseason.If that rule existed, top players — like Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis, who dislocated his shoulder in an exhibition Sunday — might choose to sit out the exhibition games. But most veterans’ jobs aren’t as secure as Portis’s is, and they would rather play than risk losing their spot to a rookie who shines in an exhibition game.

Even if veterans could sit out preseason games, some injuries would occur. The Cleveland Browns gave center LeCharles Bentley a six-year, $36 million contract during the off-season, only to lose him for the year when he injured his knee during the first training camp practice. And perhaps the worst preseason injury in NFL history was to a rookie, running back Ki-Jana Carter, who seriously damaged his knee in his first preseason game after the Cincinnati Bengals chose him with the first pick in the 1995 draft. Carter missed all of his rookie year and never again showed the speed he displayed in college, bouncing around the league for nine years and finishing his career with only 1,127 rushing yards.

The union didn’t make an issue of the preseason when it extended the collective-bargaining agreement this year, so veterans will have to find more creative ways of relaxing in August. For instance, 13-year-veteran defensive tackle Dan Wilkinson told the Detroit Lions before training camp that he was considering retirement and asked to be released from his contract. The Lions obliged, but now that he has avoided both the start of the preseason and a few weeks of two-a-day practices in sweltering heat, he signed as a free agent with the Miami Dolphins on Monday.

Following in Wilkinson’s footsteps may be the best option for veterans who want to avoid preseason injuries. The players and fans don’t like it, but as long as the union has agreed and the fans buy the tickets, the preseason isn’t going to change.

Mr. Smith is a contributing editor for FootballOutsiders.com.


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