It’s becoming rarer and rarer for star NFL players to even appear in preseason games, let alone spend more than a drive or two on the field. That isn’t sitting well with former NFL linebacker and head coach Herm Edwards.
Appearing on the You Better You Bet radio show, Edwards admonished NFL players for not being willing to play the game they’re paid to play. He pointed out that the offseason is almost half a year, so players should be ready and willing to play when the games start.
“Last time I checked, you know what football players do? They play football. They play football. That’s what you do,” Edwards said. “You signed on to play football. And when the offseason comes, you don’t play football. You’ve got almost five, six months, you don’t play any football. But when it’s time to go practice and play football, that’s what you signed on to do. You need to go do that. I say that as a guy that played football at that level.”
Edwards pointed out that he took great pride in never having missed any practices or games during his own 10-year playing career.
“Football practice, I’m going to practice football. When the games starts, I’m going to play in the game. This is football. That’s what you do! You don’t wear your baseball hat and say, ‘Hey man, I’ll wait for the regular season and then I’ll play.’ What are you talking about? You signed on to play football.”
Edwards also acknowledged that there’s never a guarantee that someone will have a 10-year career like he did and that every day out on the field could be the last.
“Football is not a career. That’s what these guys don’t understand,” Edwards said. “It’s not a career. You can’t say, ‘I’m going to play 10 years.’ You’re day to day as a football player. Day to day.”
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A Tough Case to Make
NFL fans are going to find Edwards’ case a tough one to accept. Far too many teams have seen star players suffer season-ending or even career-ending injuries in the preseason and hate the idea of a player’s campaign ending before it even begins.
There’s a certain level of embarrassment and extra frustration that goes into suffering that kind of injury during an exhibition game – when players presumably aren’t even going as hard as they can – as opposed to during a game where they’re giving it their all.
As passionate as Edwards might be about the issue, his argument is likely going to fall on deaf ears.
