How to fix NFL’s nonsensical preseason

Well, if you’d like to look at this optimistically, take solace in this: Most NFL teams only play four exhibition games now. Every 15 years or so, that becomes five when teams are asked to take a hit and play in the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio.

But it sure beats six.

Yep, from 1951 until 1977, NFL teams played at least five and as many as six preseason games — and some of those years there was only a 12-game regular season. Whoever came up with that scheme must have also thought up the old 3-to-make-2 bonus free-throw rule that plagued the NBA in the ’70s.

In 1973, the Giants finished off their preseason 6-0. They’d gone 8-6 the previous regular season under Alex Webster and believed…