Football Edging
Preseason is such a tease.
It looks like football. It feels like football. It sounds like football. It smells like football. It tastes like football. But it’s not quite football. It’s the football you have at home. You see guys you like in the uniforms you like playing the game you like, but for weird reasons.
It almost feels like you aren’t watching a team sport but instead watching a lot of individuals play a team sport. Even when the starters are in for the first few drives, you aren’t watching it to see football. You are watching to see how individuals do. You start watching guys on the line. You start watching WRs run routes. You notice mistakes and errors and you feel a dread to them knowing this might be that player’s career-ending move. The score doesn’t matter in the slightest. If your team gets blown up by 30 points who cares! What matters is how individuals did during the game. Of course if your team wins the game that’s cool and fun, but the back of your mind flashes the dreaded stat: The 2008 Detroit Lions won all their preseason games. These are teases. They aren’t real passion. Preseason is the waitress who smiles and is very nice so she can get a good tip. If you think she’s being nice because she likes you romantically, you are in for a heartbreak. Just enjoy her smile and good service and don’t read anything into it.
It’s even more of a tease when your team has a lot of new factors to anticipate. Last year I didn’t watch a single preseason snap because outside Nabers, what was there to even be excited about? More Daniel Jones? Brian Burns I guess? Daboll wouldn’t even play most starters. This year’s been different. The Giants have a new QB room that includes a first-round draft pick, as well as a big fancy defensive line top pick. Daboll is playing the starters longer. I feel refreshed knowing that this is a “get good or get the fuck out losers” season for the staff. Maybe it’s just residual Coughlin disease but both Super bowls came off seasons when the vibes were about shitting or getting off the pot. It loosened Coughlin up. Maybe it’ll loosen Daboll up. It doesn’t hurt that the Giants have actually looked pretty decent in their two games so far, with Dart being the biggest surprise. He looks like an NFL QB!
But…it’s preseason. It’s a tease. Until Dart throws those Darts in a big boy game, it’s like seeing a sexy lady in the shower but the glass is all fogged up so you can’t actually see anything. Big Blue? Big Blue Balls. It’s football edging. Enough of these previews, I want the real thing in my eyeballs right now. Stop making me wait.
Also a friendly reminder from 2019. A not-small reason there was so much clamoring from the fanbase to put Jones in when the team was struggling is because of the preseason performance creating expectations.
Imgur is telling me it’s over capacity and I’m too lazy to find another image uploader, so here:
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NFL on ESPN
August 29, 2019
Daniel Jones’ final preseason stats
• 29-of-34 (85.3%)
• 416 yards
• 2 TD
• 0 INT
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I know I’d want this guy on my team!!!!!!!
One of the weirdest interactions I’ve ever had with an opposing fan was this Vikings fan who tried to “own” me by posting a gif of his team scoring a touchdown on mine, the play was from a years old preseason game that his team didn’t even win.
Amused to see this is not the first comic with the “stripping” tag
“The 2008 Detroit Lions won all their preseason games.”
Also the 2017 Cleveland Browns!
It’s as if winning every preseason game should feel like someone putting a knife labeled ‘WINLESS’ on a string above your head. Suitably foreboding since the string should mean you’re going to be safe… well except for those two times.
Let’s see…. the Ravens had a “preseason unbeaten streak” sof 24 straight games, which for some reason was some something to be celebrated. (The Ravens website actually has a “Every game during the historic preseason win streak” slideshow.) Hell. the Commanders ended the streak and apparently were high-fiving and congratulating each other.
They went to the playoffs 5 times during that stretch, and went 2-5 in the postseason.
There’s no preseason Hall of Fame. Kenny Pickett had Steelers fans clamoring for him after he tore it up in preseason.
There were (idiot) Eagles fans who were convinced we were going to the SB because Sam Bradford had the greatest 10-minute stretch of preseason football ever.