NFL preseason football wasn’t always this bad. It wasn’t always as far removed from the actual thing as it is today. As the Green Bay Packers, and other teams will tell you, it used to once be pretty close to being actual football. And that wasn’t too long.
CBS analyst Phil Simms held court at NFL on CBS Media Day. And he said a lot of interesting things, including this:
“The Green Bay Packers took the Tennessee Titans off their preseason schedule because Tennessee played all their starters in week four,” Simms said.
“They got tired of getting beat 41-7 in the last game and getting beat up because their starters were just crushing them. Because Jeff Fisher didn’t like to wait, he wanted to have his starters be ready. It wasn’t that long ago where the fourth game was the real game. I don’t know when it changed,” Phil Simms continued.
“When I played it was the fourth, by far, always. There many starters that played the whole game. Many of them. We did a real game plan, and come out of there beat up as hell and play the next week. I remember it like it was yesterday in 1987, we’re in Pittsburgh, not only did I play every snap, I played the overtime too,” Phil Simms said.
Sounds crazy today doesn’t it? Just think, they once took NFL preseason seriously. Like Fisher’s Titans did, and the Green Bay Packers wanted no part of. Even crazier, they used to play 6 preseason games once upon a time.
“Thank god I wasn’t a part of that,” Simms said.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan, he also writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)
