Meaningless

It isn't often you get a chance to see an entertaining exhibition game in the National Football League. In fact, it's extremely rare.

Monday night's nationally televised game between geographic rivals Washington and Baltimore produced such a game. Five lead changes and a last-minute field goal from 49 yards added up to a come-from-behind 29-28 victory by the Commanders over the Ravens.

Most of the emphasis at this time of the NFL season is placed on constructing 53-man rosters, Most teams rest their starters. Entertaining football is a rarity. Winning and losing are not paramount. It's nice if you win; not devastating if you don't.

Preparing for the regular season has become an exercise in getting ready to play 17 games that mean something. No, make that everything.

In the NFL, National Hockey League and National Basketball Association, this is like spring training in baseball. Games are played, but the results do not count until the regular season. Been that way for a very long time. 

So when the Ravens compiled a 24-game winning streak in games that do not count, it rates nothing more than a footnote that deserves far less attention enterting the Commanders game than some members of the media have given it.

I call these exhibitions meaningless because in the grand scheme of life, that's exactly what they are. There is no value to them from a scoreboard standpoint other than reflecting the final score. Victories and losses do not count toward the regular season.

Exhibition results in no way forecast how a team performs in the regular season. I remember the Browns a long, long time ago lost every exhibition game one season and then went on to win the NFL championship (before the Super Bowl).

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh apparently doesn't see it that way. Perhaps stinging a little from the loss, he lashed out at those who consider exhibition football games meaningless, sort of taking it personally.

"You never played the game," he began his rant. "You never were out there in a pre-season game. You never were fighting for a spot on the field. And yet you have the audacity to say the effort somebody puts into that, to fight and win a game like that is meaningless."

Of course, members of the media never played the game. So that means they were never out there. And yes, they weren't fighting for a spot on the field. That's not their job. Their job is to write and report about what they observe. And I wouldn't call it audacious to label games like this meaningless. 

Why not? Because it's true. They are meaningless. Most fans do not attach importance to them. The final score in these games render them meaningless. It means nothing. Always has.

Harbaugh continued, "I can't respect anybody who says that because of the effort these guys put into it. And that's why I'm so proud of these guys for the way they fought. It doesn't matter, win or loss. (There he said it.) It matters the way they went about their business. And I'm proud of that and always will be."

(I wonder how Harbaugh would fare if he had to write a 500-word game story.)

It's been 24 straight victorious exhibition games since the Ravens boss uttered words like that. Sure sounded a lot like he was assuaging the feelings of the players who failed to extend the winning streak.

Many of those players come into training camp knowing they don't have much of a chance to make the final roster. A lot of them stick around in order to get reps and an opportunity to be seen by scouts from other teams. Exposure is what they seek.