When I was a little kid in the ‘80s, NFL preseason games were like professional wrestling matches — I basically knew they were both fake, but I still wanted to suspend my disbelief.
I’d watch Steelers’ exhibition games (excuse me, Mr. Commissioner, preseason games) with the same fervor I reserved for the regular season. It didn’t matter that backups, has-beens and never-weres were doing most of the heavy lifting, I was all-in for August football.
In fact, my favorite preseason game of all time was the fourth and final one of the 1988 exhibition campaign, when Chuck Noll played every single one of his A-list superstars — we’re talking Bubby Brister, David Little and the whole lot of them for the entirety of regulation and overtime — in a thrilling victory over the Saints at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.