It’s terrifying, worse than any nightmare. Worse than the recurring flashbacks of tuning into Hard Knocks in 2001, knowing exactly what was going to happen to Jamal Lewis’s knee. Actually, that’s not true. The knee thing was like something out of Saw, watching the whole season fall apart under Kelly Gregg’s massive frame.

You never want to see anyone get hurt for nothing, and that’s all preseason games are: nothing. Monitoring the games, especially when the only live option is tracking it like a caveman using NFL.com or CBS’s gamecast, is horrifying. Every long pause drives images into your head of an o-linemen or Haloti Ngata or – god forbid – Joe Flacco getting carted off the field.

The entire game has the same constant chant: No one. Get. Hurt.

There is value in preseason games. Tonight’s, for example, will settle the muddled situation in the secondary and at linebacker, where the team is more loaded than a Soderbergh film. Especially with Samari Rolle doing his best Peter Boulware impression (you’re crazy if you don’t think that’s the way this story ends), there’s one more spot for a corner or safety. Guys like KJ Gerard can make the team now; it’s become possible. A lot of the backup spots are more than available, especially considering the second and third teams haven’t exactly been lighting it up the last two weeks. By the way, what that should tell you is how incredibly bad the Washington Redskins are going to be this year, to make Troy Smith look like Drew Brees. Oh, that’s going to be glorious.

And what about Justin Harper? For half a second there, everyone thought we had a Brandon Marshall of our own just sitting in the outhouse. Now, he’s the fifth receiver at best (behind Mason, Clayton, Washington, and Williams). Plus, Yamon Figurs could stay on the roster as a specialist, and the sixth guy isn’t a shoe-in to stay on, now is he?

The other situation is at linebacker. Ozzie is almost too good at drafting these guys, because whoever’s getting cut is getting snatched up IMMEDIATELY by Denver or a similarly linebacker-starved team. Between Antwan Barnes, Prescott Burgess, Dannell Ellerbe and Jason Phillips…I mean, these guys could start for teams in the NFL, and the first one that makes the team will be the seventh linebacker on the roster! Some have wished, openly and into lamps, that Ozzie could translate some of his prowess to the wideout position. This is better.

Anyway, the game tonight against Atlanta should feature about one series for the first team, more for Terrell Suggs, whose heel injury sounds more and more like Brett Favre’s sudden decision to show up after training camp ended. But Suggs had two sacks in the AFC Championship game with half a shoulder, and thus has a get-out-of-anything card.

PREDICTION: The first team offense has nothing to prove after looking like the ’99 Rams in Charlotte. It’s preseason, does anyone care how it ends? Atlanta 197, Baltimore 158. A real gunfight.