Where it all begins

In just over 5 hours the 2006-2007 NFL season will be under way with the Eagles-Raiders Hall of Fame game from Canton, Ohio. It’s the first of the preseason games, so it’s not even sort of significant, unless there’s a major injury to a star player, so I won’t bother doing a preview, or even predicting who’s going to win, because it’s unpredictable how well random third string punters are going to perform.

A couple players to watch, though:

Oakland
Michael Huff, Safety- First round pick out of Texas.
Paul McQuistan, Guard- Third round pick. A lot of what will determine how Aaron Brooks performs this year depends on how well the offensive line holds up.

Philadelpiha
Reggie Brown, Reciever
Gregg Lewis, Reciever
Jeremy Bloom, Reciever
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The Eagles’ season depends on how well their reciever, non of whom are all that great, are able to perform. We get our first look at a couple of them, and others are going to be thrust into new roles for the very first times.

Football is a year-round sport

As training camps are getting underway, we’re starting to hear reports of the first injuries as players begin to work out those muscles that have been resting since the season ended. Bruschi hurt his wrist, Vick hurt his leg, Bentley’s out for the season, and there are many other such injuries. Some, I’m sure, are just plain old football injuries, and they can’t really be avoided. But how many are from poor offseason conditioning? You hear about these workout warriors that lift weights and excercise several hours a day all year, and you shake your head and think they’re working too hard. But maybe that’s the way to do it. Every year reports flood out of training camps with out of condition players ripping muscles and hurting themselves because they weren’t in good enough condition to practice. It’s already started, but I think more and more in the future players are going to have to start working out all year just to stay healthy enough to play during the season.