FLOWERY BRANCH -- Football traditionalists are outraged by the NFL's new practice rules that ban two-a-day practices and drastically limit the number of times players can practice in shoulder pads and helmets.
The traditionalists contend that somewhere in football heaven, Vince Lombardi, George Halas and Paul Brown are all shaking their heads and wondering who’s responsible for watering down this brutally physical game?
The new rules were a major concession that the NFL Players Association won in the recent labor negotiations with the league.
Coaches who violate the rules could be fined $100,000 for the first misstep and $250,000 for the second. Teams can be fined $250,000 for the first violation and $500,000 for the second.
“That was incredibly important to the players,” Falcons president Rich McKay said. “I’m going to wait and see how the training camp rules unfold. I’m still kind of nervous about those and the affect they can have on the game.”
There are several differing opinions about practice. One extreme is the old-school coaches, who want to hit and see how tough their players are on a regular basis. The other is coaches who limit the hitting and concentrate on precision and execution.
With the rule changes, the precision-and-execution approach is now virtually mandated.
“That's why the rule had to be put in place so that across the league guys were being treated the same in regard to their bodies,” said Falcons linebacker Coy Wire, one of the team’s union representatives. “There were some coaches that really did hit more often and some players took more of a beating than guys on other teams.”
New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott ripped the new rules in an interview with the Newark Star-Ledger and contended that the league was wimping out and going soft. Wire disagrees with Scott.
“Obviously, it's a good thing from a health and wellness standpoint,” Wire said. “I'm really happy with the fact that [our owners] heard our concerns and they were willing to work with the players on the health and safety issues.”
Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson played his first six NFL seasons with the Houston Texans under head coaches Dom Capers and Gary Kubiak, who had a different approach.
“We hit a little bit more here,” Robinson said. “We didn't really wear pads at all in Houston.”
The Falcons are four days into training camp. In the mornings, they've held walk-through practices with the players wearing baseball hats in place of helmets, and going without shoulder pads.
With the Falcons, coach Mike Smith has not been big on full-contact practice.
“Coach Smith has always done a great job of being able to combine just the right amount of physical contact that we need to be a tough-minded team,” Wire said. “I don't know that it will affect us as much as it may some of these other teams and coaching styles.”
Smith, a college linebacker at East Tennessee, is a major fan of contact; as a senior, he led his team with school-record 186 tackles. As a pro coach, however, he's found it has never made sense to beat up his team in practice.
“The way that we have practiced in the past doesn’t force us to have a whole bunch of changes,” Smith said. “At the end of training camp, we’ll have eight full-padded practices. Last year, we had eight full-padded practices in training camp.”
The Falcons will have additional classroom time, but Smith said that’s to make up for missing minicamp and organized team activities (OTAs) during the 132-day lockout.
With the players not tackling on a consistent basis in practice, some contend that the quality of play will slip. The coaches also have lost some of their desired repetitions. They will not get to run plays over and over again until they are perfect because of the new constraints.
Play is expected to be shoddy because of the lost reps, particularly early in this exhibition season.
“You might see some things that you haven’t seen before,” McKay said.
Some contend the level of play will benefit from the new rules.
“When you have fresher legs and fresher bodies, you usually have a better game,” said Bob Bratkowski, the Falcons’ quarterback coach.
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