"You can not play football" – ProFootballTalk

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Pat Shurmur always thinks the pre-season has value.

Unless you are really, really important, at least.

Through Ralph Vacchiano of SNY.com, the Giants coach was ready to withstand the wind and defend the sanctity of pre-season football, which was attacked as more and more Coaches are piling up to give more meaning to their players.

"You can not play football," Shurmur said. And that's something you have to play together. I think it's beneficial for all players to play – or almost all players play – in pre-season. "

Shurmur was willing to create an exception to his own rule. While playing against quarterback Eli Manning, running back Saquon Barkley has not played in pre-season yet and should not.

"They are in two different positions," said Shurmur. "So like anything, you think about the team and you think about the individual and how it affects them. The quarterback does a lot of accomplishment. He does a lot of things important for the smooth running of the entire team. There are other groups of positions where they participate in the system, but it is not always as integrated as in other positions. "

While there is always risk-taking – which exists on the training ground as well as during the meaningless matches – Shurmur thinks that the games retain value for some players.

"Absolutely," he says. "You know, coordination is about playing more than the individual skills that players have to acquire. And you go to the game knowing that you have to play and get ready to play. The guys who know that they are not playing in the game, they can not stop it. It's human nature. Their state of mind will not be as tight as the one who knows they are playing.

"So there is something to learn from that, that they play a bunch [in the preseason game] or not."

And, of course, if you are indispensable, the rules are different.