The Eternal Optimism Of Training Camp
Voluntary camps are currently underway and I’ve already started to see some of the usual suspects. The longer you pay attention to the annual cycle the more patterns start to show themselves, and the fact that everyone seems to have a great training camp is one of them.
It’s honestly kind of charming how every team has a great training camp. There’s never much issue. You’ll get a report of a fight now and then, but in general, all the beat reporters just go in and tell you how great the team is coming along. Everyone is in great shape! The best shape of their careers, even! That guy who had a debilitating ACL tear last year? He looks sharp in practice! Your QB? He looks so on point you don’t even know. He just hit your rookie/free agent weapon pickup for a deep touchdown on the sideline! Coach is just thrilled with how everything is coming along and everyone is getting it. Hey, even that guy nobody thought about is occasionally making plays. Maybe he’ll make the final roster!
It’s easy to read all the training camp reports and get hyped up for the future. It’s hard to not get pumped up because the reports basically all tell you exactly what you want to hear. The team is gelling. Things are working. Players are improving. It won’t be for a while that the reality that most of our teams will be mediocre or garbage will hit. The bliss of spring and summer blinds us to our faults, and I’m not complaining. It’s nice to look at the team and hope. Something has to go really wrong for a bad report to come out of camp.
Just once though it would be delightful if a reporter came back from a camp and just exclaimed that the team looks like trash and is destined for a rough time. It would never happen, part of these stories is just team PR sent through beat reporters who know they’ll lose privilege if they go against the grain too much but man would it be delicious if we could have the perfect storm of a disaster team being reported on by a jaded reporter who just wants out. Could be a fun couple of days in the news cycle.
*offer void for Texans, Packers, and Falcons
CORRECTION: Falcants
Things are looking pretty dark here in Philadelphia too.
[waiting on Will Fuller V to get killed in first exhibition game, spend entire season in rehab, then sign for Buffalo in 2022]
Still would be better than Mike Wallace.
Man that was a garbage signing. All I could think about while reading this comic was that the off-season he was signed that all the reports from OTAs and training camp were that Tannehill kept overthrowing him deep.
During the 2000 preseason, lots of people talked about how Ryan Leaf had turned a corner.
Thanks, Dave. I tend to follow as little as possible coverage between the draft and training camp, simply because there isn’t much going on. And the little I saw this week is pretty much this or worse: short clips of individual drills to prove QB is so ready to take the league by storm, or tweets about how the rest of the NFL should be afraid of [insert_team_here], because of some random goddamn song playing during workouts.
It’s all well and good until: [your team’s QB prospect] has thrown 3 interceptions on 10 pass attempts at practice
Reminds me of the time Christian Hackenberg signed with the Eagles and his first 2 passes in practice were interceptions
thing is Mahomes threw 6 in camp
in 2017
While I agree with this premise in general, and certainly with the national media, if you can’t find local coverage that doesn’t fall into this trap, your local media kinda sucks. Growing up in Michigan, I certainly saw plenty of negativity in offseason reports on the Lions! But with my team now, I have a couple sources who’ve been there for years and you see pretty honest reports on “[Player who struggled last year] has now [had one nice practice, but can’t string together multiple ones]” or “[INjured player] is [still off to the side and unlikely to be ready for Week 1”. There is always a lot of “[Undrafted free agent] looks great!”, but honestly a handful of them make the team every year, and some have legitimately played a part in winning a division/conference/SB championship, so I even pay attention to that. (And they did accurate predict the team would struggle last year too)
Seriously, I can even hear Jim Donovan’s voice while reading it.
I’m here at [BROWNS] training camp where things are going great and we can [SEE THE DEFENSE REALLY COMING TOGETHER TO COMPLEMENT LAST YEAR’S OFFENSIVE LEAP FORWARD].
[MYLES GARRETT] looks incredibly sharp, as ever. [MACK WILSON] has taken a big leap forward. [JA’DEVEON CLOWNEY] is in the best shape of his life and is fitting right in already. [GREEDY WILLIAMS] is healthy and has full use of his arm after that scary nerve injury last year. [MARVIN WILSON] is really surprising people.
[COACH STEFANSKI] says everyone is on the same page and has “bought in.” [LITERALLY EVERYTHING] is positive and [THE BROWNS] find themselves in the unprecedented position of being real contenders this year.
This has literally been said for the last 20 years at the Brown Training camp. And I continued to believe it. No difference this year
To be fair though… It’s hard not believing those things…
Bengals broke the pattern.
The rookie QB is looking sharper than ever after record recovery time from the ACL/MCL tear.
All Burrow needs to do is punch a prostitute will driving a stolen car and he will 100% be carrying the Bengals franchise.
If the reporter dumping on the team is ever going to happen, it’s probably going to happen this year. The Houston Texans are quite possibly the worst team, in the last few decades.
I remember when Reese acted as if Flowers is coming around and used that as an excuse to not address the offensive line issue.
I feel personally attacked
Meanwhile in Buffalo – On the first day of OTAs Josh Allen throws a pick 6 to a defensive lineman who then gets decked by an offensive lineman….but it was a teambuilding exercise 😀