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Merry hump day, everyone!
Hey, we’ve made it to the halfway point of another week of the off-season, which, in the not-so-distant future, will become the 2021 NFL pre-season, which, of course, will quickly exit to make way for the regular season. Here’s the 2021 preseason schedule, courtesy of NFL.com. I think you’d better enjoy this preseason, because, although it’s going to be shorter than a “normal” preseason has been in the modern era (I say “normal” to exclude strike seasons and last year’s pre-season, which was eliminated by the plague), I think it will likely be longer than the preseasons that will follow in future years. The NFL will get a taste of that additional revenue they’re likely to see from scrapping one preseason game, and they’ll start dropping pre-season games from the schedule faster than Troy Williamson can drop a pass. Oh wait, eliminating preseason games and adding regular season games would probably cause an increase in player injuries, and @ the NFL cares more about player safety than they do about revenue@, so I’m probably wrong. You can ignore what I said. Carry on.
Honestly, and I understand I’m likely in the minority, which isn’t uncommon, but I really enjoyed the preseason games. I loved watching the bubble players trying to make a roster spot, watching guys secure a spot by lighting it up on special teams, or watching the battles for a #2 spot on the depth chart. I’ll miss it when it’s gone. SKOL!
Around the DN since our last open thread:
From Chris, nearly all NFL stadiums have been approved for 100% capacity in 2021.
Training camp will start on July 27th, per Chris. Crap, I thought it was going to start tomorrow. Wow, I feel dumb now.
BJ Reidell and Drew Mahowald discuss the media love flowing the Vikings’ way and other subjects on Unbelievable! - Power Ranked.
Other Vikings/NFL news and random oddities and annoyances:
This could be awkward, Brayden Coombs could reunite with Darrel Bevell, who fired him in Detroit, per Sports Illustrated. When you think about it, though, I think nearly everyone in the NFL has been fired in Detroit at some point. If you go there, it’s going to happen, so maybe it won’t be so awkward.
Speaking of awkward, Jimmy Garoppollo and Trey Lance were on the field together, per Mercury News.
In the latest episode of The Real Red-Headed Step Children of Entitled Town, A-a-ron wasn’t the only person missing from OTAs today. According to Adam Schefter, most of the WR crew was gone as well, so Jordan Love had to play catch with “a makeshift WR crew”. It’s day one, how much are they really doing? Anyway, a makeshift WR crew is pretty much what they’re going into the season with, isn’t it? Might as well practice how you’re going to play.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Aaron Rodgers wasn’t the only Packer missing at Organized Team Activities today; so were Green Bay’s top five WRs: Davante Adams, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Allen Lazard, Devin Funchess and Equanimeous St. Brown. So Jordan Love had to work with a makeshift WR crew.</p>— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1397335406044123137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 25, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8”></script>
Again, we all know the rules, but in case someone is new:
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With that, the beer light is on and the bar is open. Belly up & tie one on, don’t forget to tip the cows, and settle in and join the party.