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Daily Madden: Injured NFL Players Weren't Ready For Regular Season Games

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- At least 22 NFL players have been injured in the first two weeks of the season. John Madden told the KCBS Radio morning crew many of them weren't ready to play.

"In training camp, we have less practice, we have less contact, the players play less in preseason, and then the season starts," Madden said. "I think they're not ready... It's like 'don't play, you're going to get hurt.' Well you can't do that. You got to play, you got to play the preseason, you have to practice, you have to scrimmage. It's football. And then when you don't do that, then one day the season opens... and you didn't get ready to play the whole game."

Madden said coaches need to find the right preseason mix to prepare players for the regular season. "You have to beat the body up a little to get the body ready to play... You can't put the body in a jar and then pull it out of a jar and make it play 60 minutes. I think you gradually have to progress up to that point.

"There was a day that that was overdone. Contact was overdone, length of play in preseason games was overdone. Those things were all too much. And now there's probably too little. There's probably someplace in the middle."

Daily Madden

Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 and Monday and Friday mornings at 9:15 on KCBS All News 740 AM/106.9 FM.

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