NFL offseason calendar increases risk of injury
By Brady Poppinga
As a player, receiving constructive criticism from your coach is not only part of the job, but beneficial. It’s especially critical when it’s about the intricacies of a specific, well-researched strategy or scheme to exploit weaknesses and vulnerabilities of your opponent.
Rookies don't know what it takes to play in the NFL...how could they. Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien addressed the poor conditioning of his players at rookie minicamp. He said on Friday, “We have a lack of conditioning, so these guys need to get in better shape as a whole.”
O’Brien said the one thing that challenged his rookies was the Houston heat. We all know that this time of year and through the summer months that heat mixed with humidity is the norm down south, much different than other parts of the country. If you grew up in a mountainous area like I did, it takes time for your body to adapt to that heat and humidity regardless of your level of conditioning. Without knowing the specific conditioning levels of the players O'Brien is aiming his criticism at, the more general problem I've witnessed regarding rookie conditioning is that the mini-camps are planned right after the draft without these rookies having an opportunity for their bodies to adapt to football.
Training for combine testing isn't training for football. You can get your overall conditioning level to a good place, but the unpredictability of the movements - the reaction and bursts that come during football action - are things that most rookies have no idea how to prepare for.
Once their last year of college football ends, rookies begin to prepare to run a fast 40 and to look good in spandex like a track star. That type of conditioning is not the same as preparing to do football specific movements. So it isn’t a surprise that guys like Dante Fowler (first-round pick of Jacksonville) and Jeff Heuerman (third-round pick for Denver) tore ACLs early in their NFL rookie offseason experience. Fowler's injury in particular looked like basically a live pass rush situation. His knee popped as he attempted to turn the corner while being pressed on by the offensive tackle.
This isn't something you can simulate with barbells and dumbbells, you just have to work your way slowly back into doing those kinds of dynamic, resistive movements. Injuries in football happen in ever-unpredictable ways, sometimes freak things happen. But there's also a good chance these super-early injuries are because the players' bodies have not adapted to football movements required to compete at the professional level.
For college players, even after the college season ends there is a good month and a half to two months of conditioning where your body is allowed to recover from the previous season. Then you go through another adaptation process to prepare for football before helmet or pads. The NFL is behind in this respect and it’s unbelievable that it happens in a nearly $10 billion a year industry. The offseason schedule is squeezed with the new CBA restrictions, so there's always going to be that rush to get as much in as possible - these players have to learn new systems and learn to play at NFL speed. So when you have rookies that have been training to be track stars, you need to give them time to adapt to football movements again. But from the coach's point of view, that time really doesn't exist. In the end, your biggest offseason investments are put at risk.
Injuries in football are part of the deal and some are unpreventable. However, by immediately pushing your rookies into mini-camps a week or so after the draft is old NFL thinking that hurts the new NFL assets. Why at this point would teams be willing to adopt a pattern of behavior that increases the risk of injury? You have to teach and give these guys time to prepare their bodies for football.
I’ve been through two ACL surgeries on my same knee. Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles and many others have shown that the ACL is not as significant of an injury today as it once was. For the rookies who sustained torn ACLs last week, there still is a possibility they could play at the end of this season, especially now that the NFL has implemented the injured reserve list. That means a team can pull a player off the IRL at the end of the season, so if they’re healthy enough, both rookies could get their feet wet before season’s end. Otherwise, they will be starting from ground zero next offseason, thus slowing their development as professional football players.
Coaches need to coach and players need to play. But for both sides to fulfill that role to the best of their ability, they need to approach things intelligently. Being a coach is about implementing sound strategies to win. At this point, a significant obstacle to sound strategy lies in the early NFL calendar. A building phase before the football phase - even prior to simulated football as is supposed to be the case in this new world of offseason workouts - is the best way for everybody to get better.
Most importantly, it's the best way for the players to still be available for the season.
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