Cleveland Browns: Is J.C. Tretter, NFLPA right vets don’t need preseason?

Do J.C. Tretter and the NFLPA need exhibition games? What about the fans of the Cleveland Browns? 

Cleveland Browns fans, what’s your opinion, would exhibition games be more exciting if they were reserved for players who were actually fighting for a job, rather than non-competitive veterans playing their way into shape?

The National Football League Players Association and their President, J.C. Tretter of the Browns, have repeatedly suggested that the exhibition season is too long, especially in view of the new 17-game regular-season schedule, and the NFL can probably do without exhibition games.

Or at least, the veterans should be allowed to sit out. The owners think this is a horrible idea, because they want to charge ticket revenue and get full regular-season prices and TV revenue for meaningless exhibition games. They feel that they need to have the veterans like Tretter on the field to justify charging regular season ticket prices.

Back in the 1950s, football players had other jobs during the offseason, and so they had to play their way into shape by having as many as six practice games prior to a 12-game regular season. Over the years, salaries went up to the point that players could actually use football to support their families and they learned to train year-round.

Accordingly, the exhibition season was shorted, and the regular season was expanded to 14 games and eventually became 16 games and now 17 this season. The exhibition season shrank to four games, and now three.

When the AFL and NFL were separate leagues, but playing each other in exhibitions, the games really mattered, because the teams were fighting to show whose league was dominant.

For example, the Bengals, coached by Paul Brown, used to try to murder the Cleveland Browns, who were owned by the man who fired the greatest coach of all time. Truth to tell, the Browns were not all that wild about the guy, either, you know? No matter, those games were very intense, and winning really mattered.

But by now, the exhibition games are pretty much a farce. They are boring and dumb. Truthfully, I don’t even care how the first string does in the game. Get them off the field as quickly as possible with zero injuries. That is all I care about.

The announcers will try to sell you on the idea that it is absolutely critical that the first string needs to get their timing down and build chemistry, blah, blah, blah, but in reality, just one major injury to a key player totally wipes out any of this chemistry and timing that supposedly occurs.

Exhibition games are pointless and multimillion-dollar players should not be risked in order to play in them. It makes no sense.

The 2020 season is proof positive that the exhibition games are not needed at all. Last year, due to Covid, J.C. Tretter and the NFLPA were able to negotiate skipping the exhibition games altogether and nobody missed them.

However, the owners will not abandon them because they do bring in revenue. People still go to the stadiums, and they still watch the games on television. The fear is that if Baker Mayfield, J.C. Tretter, and the other veterans are not there, not as many people will go to the game or watch on TV.

Thus, ownership wants exhibition games, and they demand some level of participation by the veterans, claiming that ratings will die without the veterans.

Is that really true? Mayfield and the veterans were not at the NFL draft, but a lot of people tuned in anyway. Maybe they would be interested to watch the team of the future in the right circumstance. This fan believes that the NFL is missing an enormous marketing opportunity.

Granted, without the opportunity to test it out, there is some chance that the owners might be right that the “name-brand” players have to be present to sell the product, but this is by no means obvious. But before making that judgment, they ought to at least watch a few episodes of reality TV shows such as their own Hard Knocks, plus super successful shows such American Idol, the Apprentice, and Survivor to realize that Americans do have an interest in getting to know young talent and seeing who succeeds and who fails.

They generated plenty of TV revenue in the process. The NFL needs to re-think how they are presenting their product. They have such a smash success with the NFL draft, and then they hide the young players under a rock unless they start at an offensive skill position. That is stupid.

It only makes sense to fill out the rest of a roster with players who have not yet made it and watch their progress.

How could that be done? One way would be to make it a rule that first-string veteran players with fully guaranteed contracts — say, the top 35 or so players (not counting the rookies) — are guaranteed a spot on the 53-player roster, and are not active for the exhibition games. I can guarantee winning 100 percent approval from Tretter and the NFLPA on this point!

The remaining 55 players (which would also include all of newly drafted players ) will be the players who appear in the exhibition games. You have to make sure that you can cover all 22 positions and special teams, of course.

They will fight for 18 remaining spots on the active roster at the conclusion of summer camp. The drafted players will be more or less automatic, but the rest will be fought for, and the exhibition games will be highly competitive for players who are looking for a starting job or to at least make the team.

Thus, in this system, the exhibitions would not have any veterans just playing to get in shape. It will only be the players who are truly fighting for a job.

Cutdown Day ought to be changed to Promotion Day, when the players from the exhibition squad get promoted to the 53-player roster and join the 35 who are already on the team. They could announce it on national TV just like American Idol. Unlike American Idol, however, the coaching staff and front office make the call, rather than the vote of the fans.

As it is, exhibition games are something that veterans are forced to do. They are not exciting, and they are not really competitive. They are boring and I usually do not even watch the first quarter when the regulars are in, running their most basic plays.

The real action does not start until the second and third quarter when they start substituting and bringing in the new players that we are interested in. So why not formalize the process and just remove the veteran segment altogether?

Making the team should be a reality TV event. Exhibition games should be limited to those players who need those games in order to make the team. Veterans should not be forced to risk themselves playing in these ridiculous contests.