NFL
By: Greg Rector
August is the dog days for baseball, of course, the only one of the four major sports in the midst of their regular season. In the good old days long before the internet (Yes the Stone Age, folks) NFL team’s training camps and the pre-season games would occur without much fanfare or coverage. Over in the NBA, there was no such beast as the Summer League either, it only started in 2002. Today though we see wall-to-wall coverage of both. Now don’t get me wrong it’s great seeing both of these off-season events take place, and I enjoy watching the coverage of both. As y’all know I am a fan of the most-watched franchise in the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys, and in the NBA I am a Lakers fan, living in Canada so I also get all the Raptors coverage you could ever ask for. My problem lies within the overhyping everything that happens in both leagues at this time of the year.
THE NFL PRESEASON :
The single biggest culprit of the massive coverage and the overhyping by far is seen oh so clearly on social media. Can’t open Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc… without being inundated with various claims by so many about how this guy is so great, this team is going to do this and they will do that. It’s these claims that have no true merit that is so annoying. Now I am always hopeful for the Cowboys to once again be in a Super Bowl, waited 26 years for it to happen again. In this internet age and the instant access to information though, it’s almost impossible to see realistic expectations for the upcoming season. Ever since the NFL draft the hype surrounding the Cowboys has been at its normal off-the-charts level, and not just from the fans on social media, but former players turned analysts, former GM’s now doing analysis as well are guilty. They feed a beast, in Cowboys Nation that beast is to return to being unchallenged as “America’s Team,” and to be back as annual threats to win the Lombardi Trophy. Sorry guys but 2021 is far more likely to be like the previous 26 years than seeing them play in the Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium in February is.
The Cowboys have now played two pre-season games and have lost both games. Yes winning and losing pre-season games doesn’t always equate to having a winning or losing season, just ask the 2008 Detroit Lions who went 4-0 in the pre-season, only to have an 0-16 regular season. Here is where the overhyping gets out of control, not just with the Dallas fanbase, but with almost every NFL fanbase especially f your team was a non-playoff team the year prior. Those teams get the higher draft picks of course, so both fans and far too many in the media begin the hype machine for those players. I will use Micah Parsons drafted 12th overall by Dallas as an example. In the two games, Parsons has made plays, in the Hall of Fame game he forced a fumble and recovered it early on. He followed that up with a pretty 16 snap effort against Arizona. So the “Hype,’ is off the charts concerning Parsons at this point. Whereas for me and those who really look at things on a realistic basis there’s been something missing for Parsons. Know what that is? He hasn’t faced a first-team offense!!! So he has fared well against a level of competition that is below what he will face on a weekly basis. Can’t we simply enjoy his work and see that he is making progress without the talk of Defensive Rookie of the Year and other accolades? If you read my mock drafts and my Cowboys draft article I tempered my expectations for Parsons based on only playing one season of college football and the fact he opted out of the 2020 season.
This same tempering of expectations needs to happen in Chicago (Justin Fields) San Francisco (Trey Lance) as another two prime examples. My Twitter feed especially was inundated with so much hype for those two after their first games yesterday, I was almost certain Fields is the next Johnny Unitas and Lance is the next Joe Montana. Slow your roll folks, neither quarterback did anything against a first-string defense!! Yes, the pre-season games can give us hope for what might happen in the future, but keep it at that level and save yourself the heartache of that moment when cold-hard reality hits. That moment in week one where a veteran pass rusher welcomes the rookie quarterback to the league with a sack, where a linebacker strips the ball from Najee Harris and recovers the fumble when the Steelers were in the red zone, the moment where Heisman Trophy winner Davonte Smith drops what should have been a routine catch for the Eagles costing them a victory. Those are the realities of football and folks seem to simply dismiss those inevitabilities far too much. Heaping praise and creating unsustainable expectations on individual players and teams as a whole lead to one thing these days, and that’s the over-criticism that also gets out of control. This pre-season there are 13 yes 13 starting quarterbacks who will not take a single snap.
NBA SUMMER LEAGUE :
This one might have surpassed the overhyping with the NFL by a country mile. Open up YouTube and you will see a stream available for all the big-name draft picks. Want to think the Pistons are headed for the glory of again being a title contender? Step right up to several “content,” creators who will have you believe Cade Cunningham will do just that. Pick your player and you will find someone staking their claim that players X, Y, and Z are the answer for their franchise. Again folks these guys are not playing a level of competition anywhere near what they will meet up with once the regular begins. Fandom is great, don’t get me wrong on that, however, the gap between the Summer League and the regular season in the NBA is as wide as the ocean. It’s just as bad with the so-called sports journalists and the ex-players turned analysts as well.
It’s fun to debate whether the Raptors made the right choice with Scottie Barnes versus the consensus pick of Jalen Suggs. Doing so with so much certainty though without giving a single thought to how Barnes will actually mesh with VanVleet, Trent Jr, Anunoby, and Siakam, is simply ridiculous. It could be fantastic and who knows maybe the Raptors do return to the playoffs after their year-long road trip and the disaster that turned out to be. It could also end up in a situation like the Sixers have faced with the Embid/Simmons combination. We simply won’t know until they are actually playing on the same court. After 4 games I have seen some positives for Barnes, yes his physique is NBA-ready today, yes as advertised he is a defensive dynamo, and plays team-first basketball. He has created way more offense than we were told to expect which is great, however, all you three-point mad folks will hate that he is creating the points without shooting the three for the most part. Just like I said earlier about the inevitable downfalls that will come his way when he faces real NBA opponents, I won’t be overly critical of him because I understand what he is currently doing will be so much harder in the regular season.
Enjoy the Summer League games for what they truly are folks. They are glorified scrimmages with almost all involved in their rookie or second season of NBA play. The other reason the overhyping now becomes so bothersome is that it also leads to being far too over-critical of players and teams later on. In this era of instant gratification and instant access far too many are forgetting the simple reality in professional sports is that success is extremely fickle, so many things need to go right. Look at these players and teams objectively folks. Be fair-minded and stay in the real world. Enjoy these two August events for what they are. Opportunity to see players in an EXHIBITION scenario it isn’t a sure thing for success in so many cases. Be a fan, not a FANATIC.
As always you can find me on Twitter @GregCowboys
