Over the Physical: The Detriment of Physical Team Offseason Practices
Last week, Mike McCarthy and Ron Rivera were fined and lost 2023 training camp practices due to hosting over-physical practices. Krebs’ latest Monday NFL Column looks into how and why intensity must be favored over physicality in the NFL offseason.
NFL players prepare for the upcoming season in different ways, whether working with a trainer, a “guru”, or by positional group. When players are in the team building for OTA’s and training camp, preparing players for the entirety of the NFL season with the long-term picture should be the goal of these practices. Old school coaches argue that physicality is necessary in those practices to simulate game environments. While physicality is a tenant of football culture, progressing teams toward in-game physicality should be the goal of offseason practices rather than create a team ready immediately to play NFL quality football from a physical standpoint.
Developing and maintaining intensity prepares players for an in-game mentality. Working cohesively with the team to progress rather than enact game circumstances allow for a natural progression. Implementing game-like physicality in the offseason will wane players’ health due to the longevity of a football season. Preparing players for in-game situations rather than subjugating them to over-physicality is in the best interest of all the players involved.
The NFL fined and eliminated some practices next training camp for Ron Rivera of the Washington Commanders and Mike McCarthy of the Dallas Cowboys for raising too physical environments in their team’s training camps. Hosting practices dependent on physicality completely undermines the point of having these practices. Both coaches put their players at a higher risk of injury when they are not playing real NFL games. Keeping a long-term mindset over short term physicality allows for a progression into in-game performance.
For those who think the league is “too soft, and these are NFL players,” developing physical practices now could be extremely harmful during the regular season, when players test their physicality. These continued practices would lead to more injury, which could threaten careers. Keeping a safe mindset during the offseason is critical towards allowing players to perform to their best and healthy over the NFL regular season.
Curving physical practices before they result in injury is what the league needed to do. It may not be a popular move to act as a “check” on NFL teams, but that should be the point of the league: sending a message to every NFL team to prioritize the difference between intensity vs. physicality. Keeping the players best interests should be the norm for team personnel, and developing physicality, in favor of making practices physical, can ultimately keep players healthy throughout the entire season.
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