Green Bay, Wis. ? The NFL wanted the Tennessee-Green Bay game completed, in part because fans had paid full price, even to watch scrubs at a final preseason game.

So, after a 21/2-hour lightning delay, the Titans’ and Packers’ backups finished another meaningless match.

The league office ordered the game completed to preserve “the integrity of the preseason,” Packers president Bob Harlan said.

That seems a misnomer after a starless night across the league in which teams played their starters only sparingly or sat them out altogether. Getting the games in is one thing. Getting the regulars into them apparently is another.

In Green Bay, fans who paid up to $250 face value for tickets got to see a full game, but they didn’t see Brett Favre or Ahman Green, and they watched Steve McNair take just three snaps before calling it a night.

The New York Giants didn’t suit up Kerry Collins, Michael Strahan or Jeremy Shockey against Baltimore. Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Aeneas Williams and Priest Holmes sat out in St. Louis. The Jets and Eagles each used just one starter. Rich Gannon, Drew Bledsoe and Joey Harrington made only cameo appearances.

Blame Michael Vick and Chad Pennington, whose recent injuries have rekindled skittishness in coaches and renewed a call to shorten the preseason.

Packers coach Mike Sherman is against that because starters would need to play the same number of snaps to prepare for the regular season. But he would like to see veterans with safe roster spots officially excused from the final preseason games.

But will NFL teams charge less for tickets to those games?

Hardly.

Former Packers general manager Ron Wolf said shortening the preseason would actually result in more injuries. He’d rather see it lengthened.

“You can’t just walk on the field and suddenly start tackling somebody or blocking somebody and not expect anybody to get hurt, whether you play two weeks, four weeks, six weeks,” Wolf said. “Until they can devise a way to play football without blocking or tackling, you’re going to have injuries.”

A shorter preseason is a moot point anyway, Sherman said.

“When I come home on the night before a game and I look at the tickets that are on my table that my wife is going to take to the game that are $65 a pop, I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen,” Sherman said.

“Somewhere along the line, money talks.”

That’s why the Packers and Titans didn’t finish up until 12:46 a.m. CDT, more than 5 1/2 hours after kickoff. The sun was almost up by the time the Titans’ flight landed back in Nashville.

For the Packers, it was a case of lightning striking twice.

Their preseason opener against Kansas City at the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio, was scrubbed when lightning hit nearby with 5:55 left in the third quarter and the Chiefs ahead, 9-0.

This time, teams left the field with 2:05 left in the second quarter and Tennessee leading, 14-0. Players changed out of wet uniforms and sat in saunas, surfed the Internet and watched the MTV Video Music Awards.

Then they went back out and finished before about 15,000 soaked souls.

The fans got a hearty laugh when the two-minute warning was announced one play after the game resumed, and let out a huge cheer when it was announced that the usual 12-minute halftime would last only one minute.

“The main reason the league wanted the game to be completed is because of the integrity of the preseason,” Harlan said. “The fans have paid to see it. The commissioner felt it was important that we make every attempt, as long as we didn’t affect the safety of the fans or the players, to complete the game.”

Some players thought it was a joke when told to go back out, but few found it funny.

Titans linebacker Rocky Calmus felt a hamstring pop like a cold rubber band on his first play after the delay, just the thing Titans coach Jeff Fisher feared might happen.

“It’s hard to say if Rocky would have pulled his hamstring or not” without the lengthy delay, Fisher said. “But we lost a player who was competing for a starting position.”

Titans linebacker Keith Bullock called the decision to play “the stupidest thing I’ve ever been involved in football-wise.

“You take the field at 11 o’clock at night, and you are still in the second quarter. You go out there, and you get guys hurt, and it’s really pointless for a preseason game.”

By the way, Tennessee won 27-3. As if it mattered.