It is never fun when you see a high profile player go down with an injury in a practice or a meaningless preseason game. Watching a team’s hopes for the season evaporate before your very eyes is something which is difficult to stomach, no matter who your favorite NFL team might be.

Recently, fans have seen Cincinnati Bengals Joe Burrow and Miami Dolphins Jalen Ramsey both lost for an amount of time For Burrow, it looks like he should be okay with his calf injury at the start of the regular season. As for Ramsey, speculation abounds with his meniscus injury, but most are suggesting he’ll miss the vast majority of the regular season.

Either way, it begs the question about these preseason/training camp injuries…are they just a part of the process?

In the aftermath of the Burrow and Ramsey injuries, many were bemoaning the ramp up to training camp, or lack thereof, as a main reason for injuries like the ones which were suffered in the early stages of camp.

While most don’t really think about it, did the NFLPA paint themselves into a corner with them wanting to practice less? Did the lack of overall physical preparation result in more soft tissue injuries? Also, with the league implementing a 17-game regular season, and eliminating the 4th preseason game for all but two teams, are they further decreasing the ramp up period for players to actually get acclimated to the physical nature of football before the games actually count?

There are a lot of layers to this discussion, and it’s the main focus of the latest “Opinion or Fact” podcast where co-hosts Jeff Hartman and Wesley Coleman try to decipher if there is a way around some of these unfortunate camp/preseason injuries.

Listen to the podcast in the player below, and let us know what you think in the comment section below the podcast.