Pre-season Football
If you were not already aware, football season is just around the corner. It all starts with a rematch of last season’s NFC Divisional Championship game, with the Minnesota Vikings going to the Superdome in New Orleans to play the Saints on Thursday September 9th. The first Monday Night Football games, yes there is two games on, are on Monday September 13th, the Baltimore Ravens at the New York Jets at 7:00 pm (ET) and the San Diego Chargers at the Kansas City Chiefs at 10:15 pm (ET). The rest of the football teams will play their first game on Sunday September 12th.
The pre-season games are finally over. Now the games count, now they mean something. Finally starters will play the whole game, and play hard. While the pre-season games don’t mean anything, and have absolutely nothing to do with the regular season or playoffs, they can be a small gauge as to how the team expects to do. However, it is hard to tell anything based on only 4 games, some teams showed improvements and will hope to carry the momentum into the regular season, while other teams have shown vulnerability and still have questions heading into the regular season.
One team on a high following the pre-season is San Francisco 49ers. They were the only team to go 4-0, defeating the Colts, Vikings, Raiders, and Chargers, in that order. While starting RB Frank Gore was limited on his touches, rookie Anthony Dixon made a name for himself racking up 300 yards on 74 carries, averaging 4.1 yards per carry, and scoring 4 touchdowns.
The Lions also look to turn around their recent years’ fate behind a young squad featuring Matt Stafford, Calvin Johnson, and rookies Jahvid Best and Ndamukong Suh. The Lions went 3-1 in the pre-season, losing to the Steelers week 1, and defeating the Broncos, Browns and Bills by the narrow margins of 5, 7 and 4 respectively. Stafford had a good pre-season going 37 for 52 passing, for 353 yards and 3 touchdowns. He will be looking to improve on his rookie numbers of 13 touchdowns and 20 interceptions from last year.
The Colts and Bears have both already forgotten their pre-seasons, each going 0-4. The Colts gave up a league high 160 points in 4 games, an average of 40 points per game, 59 to the Packers in game 3. The Colts’ four losses were to the 49ers by 20, Bills by 13, Packers by 35, and Bengals by 2. Despite this poor performance, the Colts still remain a favorite the return to the Super Bowl as Manning and many other starters were limited in playing time to avoid injury. But the defense better find a groove fast, or Manning may not be able to keep up.
The Bears however do not have a Manning to right their ship, and may be in more trouble. Their losses in the pre-season were to the Chargers, Raiders, Cardinals and Browns, all lower rung teams with key off-season losses. The Bears are coming off of a 7-9 2009 season behind Jay Cutler. Defensive stand-out Brian Urlacher re-injured himself in a loss to the Cardinals and may not ever get to 100%.
But who knows? Pre-season means very little, week 1 is where it all begins. Prepare for a great football season.


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