When NFL training camps open, teams begin the month-long preparations for the upcoming season. By the end of training camp most players, coaches, and fans are ready for the regular season to start.
Unfortunately for some teams, by the time training camp ends, the question is not "Are you ready for some football?" but "How much longer do we have?"
The excitement players and fans feel for the college draft can sometimes degenerate into dread. Very few high draft picks reach training camp before some sort of holdout. We all understand the reason for holdouts. If you found yourself negotiating a deal that had the potential to set you up for life and you had the knowledge that you may only get one chance to negotiate it, getting to training camp on time would most likely slip down your list of priorities.
Training camp may be too long but it must be necessary to be in camp for some period of time, especially for rookies. The NFL is not college football and many college stars have faded after they started playing games on Sunday.
The San Diego Chargers were arguably the worst team in the NFL last year. QB Drew Brees has disappointed and the backup is 40-something Doug Flutie. The Chargers did address the QB situation and looked forward to first-round pick Philip Rivers as their QB.
After training camp, the starting QB for the Chargers is looking to be ... Drew Brees. Rivers held out and missed 29 practices and may not be ready to start in the eyes of the coaching staff.
Last year, the Chargers had Brees, Flutie, standout RB LaDainian Tomlinson and some sort of receiving corps. This year, Brees and Flutie are back, Rivers is not ready yet ,and there is no one to throw the ball to. It is going to be a long year in San Diego and for L.T. the Second.
The Cleveland Browns also appear to have a bunch of problems of their own.
The heat is on head coach/vice-president Butch Davis. Normally, a 5-11 season leads to a short meeting with the team owner. Davis somehow got promoted. There is no one else for Davis to blame in Cleveland and results are needed.
What wasn't needed was for receiver Dennis Northcutt to fail in his bid to file for free agency (his name isn't Terrell Owens, so no second chance for him) and then declare he would never play for the Browns again after it was denied him. Since then, Northcutt has been slated as a punt-returner.
Running back James Jackson, third-round pick in 2001, has also stated that he wants out of Cleveland since the team isn't treating him with respect.
First-round pick Kellen Winslow held out for 12 days and missed 16 practices. During the holdout, QB Jeff Garcia made the unusual move of criticizing Winslow for not thinking of the team and urged him to get the deal done.
It isn't known how well this went over with Winslow, but he wasted no time in letting people know what he thought when just a week after his holdout ended he complained that the intensity of the Browns' practices wasn't enough for him. Winslow made his point by laying out one of his teammates with a hit that upset several members of the team.
Garcia seems to be showing that he will have a great deal to say this year when he criticized his lack of playing time in preseason games and the fact that he hasn't had the chance to throw the ball enough.
After reaching the playoffs two seasons ago, the Browns were supposed to step up, not sep back with a 5-11 record. A slow start this year could lead to more bickering and another disappointment for Davis and the Browns.
Two years ago, the Buffalo Bills looked like they made all the right moves. QB Drew Bledsoe had two 1,000-yard receivers in Eric Moulds and Peerless Price and only a fade down the stretch kept them out of the playoffs. Last year, the Bills struggled to a 6-10 record after starting 2-0.
Bledsoe bore the brunt for much of what went wrong with the Bills, but so did head coach Gregg Williams, who was fired.
New top man Mike Mularkey has been given the job of reviving the Bills' anemic offense. Mularkey is credited with re-creating QB Kordell Stewart (when he played well). Throw in Sam Wyche as a QB guru for Bledsoe, the return of defensive coordinator Jerry Gray to run the NFL's second-ranked defense, and western New York was looking good and tickets were all of a sudden hard to find.
However through the preseason, the Bills have not shown that they are prepared to take any steps that do not lead backwards.
The Travis Henry/Willis McGahee RB drama has already started to heat up. McGahee is reported to have said he wants to be traded if he is not the top back by opening day. Henry is injured and did not start the last two preseason games, leaving the starting RB position way up in the air.
The Bills' first team offense scored only one TD through the preseason. Last season, the Bills did not score an offensive TD in seven games. The offense may not have progressed after all.
Drew Bledsoe had his worst season in 2003 that included being sacked a league-high 49 times and his 22 turnovers were more than the Chiefs, Titans, Colts, and Jets had as a team.
The QB situation in Buffalo had a few bright spots in first-round pick J.P. Losman and fourth-year man Travis Brown. Things changed quickly when Losman broke his leg in a very suspicious incident in practice that had all the elements of a "Welcome to the NFL, Rookie" hit gone wrong.
Travis Brown then sprained his knee in the game against the Colts and is out for four to six weeks.
With only Bledsoe and inexperienced Greg Zolman under center, the Bills quickly found re-tread Shane Matthews and signed him.
The offensive line also found itself the subject of much speculation when eight-time Pro Bowler Ruben Brown was cut and fourth overall pick in 2002 Mike Williams was demoted to the second team. Williams then went AWOL from camp for a day.
Bills fans are used to success and a fifth-year of missing the playoffs will not go over well. Things could go downhill quickly for the Bills and the fans may show their displeasure. It takes a great deal of incentive to go sit outside and watch a football game in December in Buffalo. Your team better be worth it.
However, no team can claim to have had a worse preseason than the Miami Dolphins.
First, Miami legend Dan Marino was hired for a front-office job and then quit in less than a month.
The Dolphins then brought A.J. Feeley in to compete with Jay Fiedler for the QB position. That competition has resulted in a tie.
The most shocking event of the Dolphins' preseason had to be the surprise retirement of RB Ricky Williams. The team has decided to go with Travis Minor and Sammy Morris in the backfield, but Williams was the Dolphins' offense for the past two seasons and can't be replaced at this point, just before the start of the year.
If the backfield does find some daylight to run through, it will not be because of the passing game. In addition to the mediocrity at QB, David Boston, who was brought in at WR to remind opposing defenses that a Dolphin passing game was at least theoretically possible, went down with a season-ending knee injury.
The defensive side of the ball has not been immune to trouble, either. All through the offseason, the contract dispute of DE Adawale Ogunleye also dogged the team. Ogunleye heldout from the Dolphins' camp looking for a better deal. When Boston went down, the Dolphins panicked and traded Ogunleye for WR Marty Booker.
In the end, the Dolphins have an unsettled QB position, had a Pro Bowl running back quit, lost a Pro Bowl receiver to injury, and traded their sack leader.
To top off the worst preseason in history, some high-profile Dolphin players, including WR Chris Chambers, did not travel with the team to play the final exhibition game in New Orleans. The Dolphin players voted unanimously to not play the game because of Hurricane Frances. The NFL disagreed, but apparently Chambers and others didn't get the memo.
It is a wonder that the Dolphins don't vote to pass on the entire season at this point.
The NFL season is 16 games of close competition often decided by only a few points and one or two key plays. Some teams will compete until the final gun. Others will wish it never begun.
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