Wednesday open thread: How many preseason games should the NFL have?

While it was great to see the Detroit Lions open the 2017 preseason with a decisive win over the Indianapolis Colts, it came at a pretty large cost. Starting defensive end Kerry Hyder was lost for the entire season, and Detroit will likely be without Brandon Copeland for the year, too.

This sort of thing happens every year for just about every team. Players routinely get injured in the preseason in the midst of a game, causing fans to lose their mind and demand the exhibition season come to an end.

Earlier in the year, we asked Lions fans how many games they thought the preseason should last, and surprisingly the poll results were nearly split evenly between two, three and four games.

But now that the Lions have been particularly hurt by the very first preseason game of 2017, let’s see if your opinions have changed. Today’s Question of the Day is:

How many preseason games do you think there should be?

My answer: I still think there should be four. I don’t think tickets should be full price, but I think teams need a full four games to properly evaluate their massive 90-man roster.

I don’t like seeing players get injured in the preseason. No one does. But freak accidents happen in football and it’s just something we unfortunately have to accept. While it’s frustrating to see it happen in a “meaningless” game, Hyder’s injury could have happened in the first quarter of the opening regular season game, and the results would essentially be the same.

Part of the reason teams have a 90-man roster at this point in the offseason is because injuries happen, and with a huge roster comes a demanding evaluation process. If you want teams to field a competitive roster when the injury bug hits, they have to have a large number of players. And when you have big rosters, you need a handful of games to properly judge them by.

No one likes it, but four preseason games are a necessary evil in the NFL.