Pre-cursed

 And now today's episode of "Why The NFL Preseason Is Stupid," brought to you this morning by the Minnesota Vikings, aka That Team God Doesn't Ever Want To Win A Super Bowl.

It seems the Vikings prize rookie, quarterback J.J. McCarthy from Michigan, was having a terrific training camp, and hope was springing eternal in the land of lutefisk and you-betcha. And then ...

And then he went down during a preseason game against the Raiders the other night. The verdict: Meniscus tear in his right knee, for which he will undergo surgery this week. The prognosis is he ain't gonna be playing for awhile.

However, this does give the Blob another opportunity to climb aboard its latest hobby horse. 

Which is, again, that NFL preseason games are stupid and unnecessary here in the year of our Lord 2024. They're the residue of a time before minicamps and OTAs and inter-team scrimmages, and the gigabyte world of analytics. A time when training camp lasted six weeks and teams played half-a-dozen preseason games because the veterans needed to play themselves into shape, and the rookies were a blank space on the canvas.

Preseason games, in those prehistoric days, were where those rookies filled in the blanks, and either played themselves onto or off the roster. It still happens today, but not as often as you think. That's because teams know everything about a rook but his underwear preference before he shows up for that first OTA -- and the odds are good they've sussed out the boxers-or-briefs thing, too. 

"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "If you got rid of the preseason, wouldn't that hurt the underprivileged? And by 'underprivileged' I mean those starving NFL owners who, as they like to say, 'aren't made of money'?"

Well ... yes. I suppose that's true.

They'd take a hit on their season-ticket revenue, because they soak season-ticketholders for the worthless preseason games, too. And I suppose the league wouldn't like it either, seeing how it barely scraped by on the $13 billion in revenue it generated last year.

Apparently that's why they bumped up the regular season to 17 games a couple of years ago, and now are agitating to bump it to 18. I suppose eventually they'll be playing a 20-game season, and the only players left by the end of it will be a third-string tackle and backup punter Buddy Bill McCracken -- a seventh-round pick from Country Fried Tech pressed into service at quarterback because "I played it some in high school."

Of course, they'll likely still be playing three preseason games even then. Because without 'em, you know, teams might look a little sloppy in that first regular season game.

 Couldn't have that. Might hurt the bottom line. And how on earth could the league get by if it only raked in $12.8 billion some year?