Tank's Take August 29, 2003

Injuries Happen

Injuries in football are an unavoidable fact of life, weather it happens in the preseason or regular season every season a few teams' best laid plans are laid to rubble as an injury destroys a teams chances of making the playoffs.

This preseason two teams have already been bitten by the injury bug as quarterbacks Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons and Chad Pennington of the New York Jets have put doubts upon both teams playoff chances. Fortunately for the Falcons Vick will likely be back in October. However Pennington will most likely be lost for the season as the earliest he will return from his seriously broken wrist is in the final month of the season.

With two playoff teams losing their young starting QBs in preseason games, it has bought up renewed debate on weather the NFL preseason is too long.

This is typical over reaction. There is a reason there are 4 preseason games. The first week is just for stretching your legs out, and getting used to game situations again. Week 2 is getting back into football shape again, and working on game situations. While Week 3 is the most important week it is the week in which the starters see the most action, and for most coaches its is the big week on determining how good the team could be. You could maybe cut down the preseason to 3 weeks, but the fourth week remains important for the players on the fringe to make a roster or impress another team who would want his services.

To try and compress these four important weeks into two or three weeks would simply not work, as their is a proven formula used by most coaches in the preseason. Changing it could alter everything form skill level to the players on a roster.

Injuries are a concern every time you take the field shortening preseason will not change this at all. In fact it may lead to more injuries as Coaches compressing their schedule are forced to cut down the time veteran starters play. This will lead to more injuries as players need time to get used to being hit, and hitting other players again. They need to gradually work up the number of tackles they make or take; otherwise they risk more injuries in the regular season. Besides the injury to Michael Vick occurred in the second week of the preseason, and there would be no way possible that anybody would ever want to cut out preseason games all together.

Some have suggested having the Quarterback wear a red jersey meaning he could not be hit like in scrimmages. Of course this is completely asinine. If you do not play under true game situation you will never be prepared for the regular season and this includes quarterbacks who will be putting themselves at greater risk in the regular season when the hitting begins. Of course there are the people who want to put dresses on QBs so the red shirts will be the first step. But this is beyond the scope this will never work and the NFL is smart enough to realize this will never work and fortunately it will never happen. Injuries are a fact f life and winning sometimes means just staying healthy and that is just an undeniable fact of life. So for now teams must hope they could avoid injuries in the preseason the same way they do in the regular season, and it should not be any other way.

Things could always be worse you could be the Detroit Tigers who will enter September in danger of breaking the AL and 20th Century record for losses in a season. Just how bad have things gotten for the pathetic Tigers, they have agreed to give golfer Phil Mickelson a try out at AAA Toledo to be a pitcher. I guess he could not do any worse the Jeremy Bonderman, and Mike Maroth who are both in danger of becoming the first pitcher to lose 20 games since Brian Kingman in 1980.

With September rolling around the baseball pennant races are heating up and this could be one of the wildest finishes in the history of the wild card. In the American League the Wild Card is shaping up as a battle between the second place teams in the Eastern and Western Divisions, while there is a 3-way battle for the Central Division Championship.

However all the excitement appears to be in the National League where 7 teams are within 2 games of the wild card spot, 3 of which are also battling for the NL Central Division title.

With this many teams in the race it is certainly going to be an exciting September. I guess that is why we don't hear anybody complaining about the wild card in baseball anymore. When it comes to baseball I tend to be a traditionalist. However, even I can see the benefits that the Wild Card has brought to baseball over the last decade. It was something that was clearly needed to add a little extra juice in September, and so the traditional old pennant race is gone, you can not tell the fans of a team in the wild jumble in the NL that would otherwise be eliminated that it does not mean as much.

On Tuesday ESPN premiered its first dramatic series "Playmakers" like a rookie undrafted free agent the show has shown enough in its first week to be given another look or two, but there are plenty of flaws that will likely land it on the practice squad or end up sending it to NFL Europe. Parts of the show were completely unbelievable, as anyone who shows up 1 minute before kickoff would not be allowed to play no matter what the owner says. While the internal monologues expressing the thoughts of the players was strong overall the acting left allot to be desired. Weather or not the show will improve waits to be seen, but a grade better then C after the first week will be too generous.

Hero of the Week: The never say die Montreal Expos who by sweeping the Philadelphia Phillies in 4 games at Olympic Stadium have propelled themselves into a 5-way tie for the Wild Card. Even fans in Montreal have taken notice as of late as they drew of 30,000 on Monday with the bargain of cheap hot dogs helping to bring more fans to the game. They may be essential homeless but they will not go down without a fight, which is why it is more important now more then ever that their future is secured so they can keep their quality team intact.

Geek of the Week: Jon Drummond, who threw the ultimate temper tantrum at the World Track and Field Championships in France Sunday. After being disqualified for a false start, Drummond proceeded to lie down on the track like a 4 year old refusing to leave the toy store, crying that it was unfair that he was disqualified. Drummonds temper tantrum would delay the race, and give the entire American Track and Field team a black eye. In the end Drummond may have a point that his disqualification was unfair as under new track rules a runner is disqualified automatically after a warning is given even if he was not the original one to have a false start. However those are the rules, and until they are changed everyone must abide by them. What Drummond did was wrong and looked bad, and made him looked like a crybaby as he lay across the track waiting to get his way. For his actions Jon Drummond should not be allowed to particiapte in next year's Olympics in Athens.