Ah yes the purgatory of the preseason in which even hope is treacherous.
“At last, at last, everything’s ahead. The smart ones say so and people listening to them and reading what they write down agree: Here comes the new. Look out. There goes the sad stuff. The bad stuff. The things-nobody-could-help stuff. The way everybody was then and there. Forget that. History is over, you all, and everything’s ahead at last.” —Toni Morrison Jazz
We’ve been cautioned and we’ve been warned. It doesn’t mean anything, the preseason. Or if it means anything it’s oracular at best.