Ravens preseason games are just part of the formula

It’s easy to have a love-hate relationship with the preseason, Ravens fans:

For six months, many fans of the National Football League have been mindlessly wandering a metaphorical desert, trying to satisfy their yearnings through reruns of NFL skills competitions on ESPN 42 and trying to teach their toddlers the intricacies of a Buck and SS Fire Zone. When those preseason games come around, we collectively salivate a bit.

“Football’s back,” we mumble to whoever happens to be within earshot. “Thank God, almighty. Football is back.”

There’s a build-up to the preseason. We watch free agency and the draft come and go throughout the offseason. We giggle a little over OTAs and mini-camps. We can barely contain our enthusiasm when training camp actually starts. Once we tune in on a Thursday night and see our team facing off against someone else’s team… oh, boy. It is on like Donkey Kong.

And then we watch the game — even a 29-0 performance like the one the Ravens offered in their preseason opener against Jacksonville — and it’s kind of like eating a walnut. It’s fine. You get a little satisfaction out of it. But it’s no almond or peanut. Heck, it’s not even a cashew, and they barely qualify as an edible…

More from Ebony Bird

• Will Baltimore Ravens be rewarded for risky Lamar Jackson decision?
• The Baltimore Ravens Big Gamble
• Ravens Super Bowl odds present fascinating insight on Lamar Jackson’s future
• Should Baltimore Ravens be interested in this recently released WR
• Do the Baltimore Ravens have serious interest in this free agent wide out?

But I digress.

In our hearts, we wanted football. In our minds, we realize that the preseason is more about giving the coaches and general managers more information when they are deciding who makes the team, who goes on the trade block and who starts at positions of competition. And, yeah, preseason is also about making rich people more money.

However, it’s important to remember that the preseason games are only part of that equation for team officials. The play-calling is pretty vanilla, as it’s usually more about seeing how players compete in one-on-one match ups than telegraphing to the rest of the league how you intend to play that season. It also affords management an opportunity to see how young players who might be excelling in practice perform when “the lights are bright.”

But mostly it’s about getting players out of the game injury-free and putting a closer eye on a few of those “bubble” guys trying to make the roster, and those aforementioned positions of competition. The organization is also considering how the players perform every day in practice, how engaged they are in team meetings, how much improvement or decline they have shown and, honestly, who’s simply a better fit for the team’s particular offensive or defensive schemes.

If we’ve learned one thing from the New England Patriots over the years, it’s that they simply get more out of certain players than other teams might, and that’s largely because they target players who meet certain criteria for their team’s needs. They don’t necessarily need the best player in the league in a specific position, they need the guy who best does what they want in a given situation, and they’ll sign two players of different attributes to share in a rotation, if needed.

The preseason is only part of the formula teams use to determine their rosters, and it can be mind-numbing for most fans to watch parts of the games, particularly when they hit the middle stages of the fourth quarter. There are players you’ve never heard of, players you’ll never hear from again and blocking that looks more like the mob getting off a crowded subway car than what you’d want out of professional football players.

But it is football. And we’ll all have our favorite new players we see on the field. Just don’t be upset later when that new favorite hits the waiver wire. The preseason is only part of the formula.