For many fans preseason is nothing more than a teaser trailer heading into the actual season.  A chance for a brief moment to see your favorite players in a meaningless game for the first time since the close of last season. To veterans it means one more way to get injured prior to kick off in a meaningful game.  However, to  late round draft picks, free agent acquisitions, and rookie free agents it means much much more.

How they do in the playoffs could mean the difference between Nicole Richie's stay in rehab for anorexia to Lindsay Lohan's stay at a nightclub.  Either they will make the team, or their stay in the NFL could be over at the same time the preseason ends.  They aren't out there to be awe struck at being on national television, they are out there to make big plays.  The defensive rookies are out to hit hard, to strip the ball, or to make the interception.  Don't bother telling them it's a meaningless game, it's not.  And nothing is going to impress the coach more than pulling off a big play that could seal the game.

Winning and losing may not matter much in the big picture when you look at the fact that the Colts have lost 7 of the last 8 preseason games played.  However to the teams like Detroit Lions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers it could go a little bit toward a moral boost.  It's their chance to show people that they have fixed their problems from the previous season, to come out early and show they aren't going to make the same mistakes, and most importantly their chance to rally the support of their fans prior to the beginning of the season.  As former Dallas Defensive Coach Dave Wannstedt once snapped at a reporter who asked him if the preseason game was important, ""Are they keeping score? Are they turning on the lights? Then it must count for something!"

The games may not go into any form of statistics and no records will be made or broken, at least none we would care to record, these games do mean something to someone.  As for me, it's another chance for me to watch my favorite game again, after a long and grueling off season of football withdraws.  It may mean nothing, but it'll give me my fix....at least till September when the meaningful games start.