The offseason is on hold, and only an injunction from the courts will get the teams’ players back in the locker room, clubhouses, and on the practice field. If that doesn’t happen, and its likely that it won’t, NFL Teams and players will NOT be allowed to organize officially and practice.
Assuming the two sides can iron out their differences by August or September, there will be NFL football played this season, but it wont be the same; at least not for the first month or so. Why not? because it will be sloppy and ill prepared.
Players need preseason not to get their legs and endurance, but to get accustomed to taking hits again and general Football conditioning. Back in the old days players would take it easy in the offseason, then show up for camp and get their wind again, along with getting used to taking hits during preseason. Today’s NFL Player is a different animal all together. He keeps in shape during the offseason because there is so much competition between each other for roster spots, and over the years, this is how the system has changed over the years.
But not having an offseason means no OTAs (Organized Team Activities), with the key word there being Organized! One of the first get togethers is the rookie gathering just after the NFL draft where players taken out of college, contract or no contract, come in and get up to speed with the team. They learn the basics of Tampa Bay football. They learn the base defense, base offense, etc. That way when the veterans join most of them a week or so later, they are not from completely different worlds. Well, not really!
This season, after the draft, there will be nothing for the rookies; In fact, they may not even get the benefit of the NFL orientation!
CAN THEY PRACTICE THEMSELVES?
Yes, nothing can stop the NFL players from getting together and practicing, but coaches CAN NOT participate or organize in any way. Not even the most minor of coaches can get involved. No Assistant defensive backs coaches! Former players however, say, Derrick Brooks, would be free to join and help out.
Imagine some cooks, some dishwashers, and waiters getting together at someones house, to practice for a wedding, without the chef there. Talk about hell’s kitchen!
During the 1987 NFL Strike, the Washington Redskins were the only team that had absolutely ZERO players cross the picket line. Not only did a Joe Gibbs coached team do that, but during the 1982 strike, QB Joe Theismann organized the Skins to get together and practice plays at nearby neighborhood parks.
The results were two Super Bowl rings for the Redskins in those years!
Word is Josh Freeman has taken the initiative and had set up a contingency plan with schedules on getting players together in a similar fashion.
So how does this favor the Bucs? Other teams will likely do the same thing, with players on their squads taking a leadership role in such matter.
But what if your team changed Coordinators or Head Coaches in the offseason? Don’t think that idea didn’t zoom past Cincinnati Bengals higher-ups when they renewed Bengals coach Marvin Lewis instead of letting him go. A Pink slip would have been a more popular mood. How is a Quarterback, wide receivers, running backs etc going to get together and practice plays when you don’t even know what the playbook is going to look like? Two other smart teams, Minnesota and Dallas fired their coaches midseason and hired full time the interim guys they put in their places. The advantages will be players who know a little more about what they will be running. But how much of what they were doing last year will look like what they planned on running this year with their first as HC of their new team.
And here is another way it helps the Bucs…Tampa Bay will play 5 teams and 6 games out of 16 against these teams with such disarray in their coaching ranks. While its still unknown the time and date of the games the Bucs will play, imagine if the Bucs schedule has 2 or three of these teams in the first month? With games against Tennessee, San Francisco, and two games against the Carolina Panthers to go along with games against the Vikings and Cowboys, and the boys in Pewter could have a serious advantage if any of those are scheduled early on in the season.
The teams with the longest tenured coaching, with the most leaders amongst their players ranks, with the least amount of changes from 2010 to 2011, will have the biggest advantage over the others. As the Bucs stocked up their team with draft picks instead of free agents, they will have the fewest changes to have to worry about, and that could translate into early success.
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