While NFL fans may be tired of seeing so many offseason activities where their players are put at risk, ESPN analyst Louis Riddick is just tired of hearing all of the complaining.
There have been injuries galore this offseason and fans have called for getting rid of just about every source of them – joint practices, minicamps, hard hits, preseason games and so on.
The complaints have annoyed Riddick so much that he wonders if people would prefer to simply abolish the NFL regular season and just have the NFL pick the playoff teams every year. He posed that very question on X yesterday.
“Abolish joint practices, abolish preseason games, abolish minicamp and OTA’s, abolish hitting too hard, hell. maybe abolish the regular season too and just pick the playoff teams based on what they did the year before…” Riddick mocked. “Would that make everyone happy ? Never heard so much complaining about EVERYTHING in my life…”
Riddick Doubles Down
On Wednesday’s edition of Get Up, Riddick defended his take, calling out people who complain about wanting to get things out of football that help with the preparation process. He pointed out that all of these things people complain about are part of the process, and cutting them out is more likely to hurt the on-field product than help it.
“What do people want?” Riddick said. “Because we complain about everything, we cut down so many things in the game of football. People expect that this game can be played at the level it’s played at if players just show up on Sunday and that’s it.
Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports.
“That’s not how it works. That’s not how football is played, that’s not how teams are built. And I think we just need to pump the brakes on all this, ‘We need to stop that, we need to cut out this…’ because if you start doing that too much, the game is gonna suffer eventually. It’s not going to look the same as what you’re accustomed to and what has drawn in the fanbase it has worldwide.”
Does Riddick have a point?
