There have been reports about the NFL going to an 18-game schedule sooner than later, and about the NFLPA looking to rearrange the offseason schedule perhaps as preparation – and JP Finlay thinks that’s all an ‘inevitable effort.’
Cool, but Brian Mitchell, our resident former NFL player, isn’t a fan of it all.
“I think they’re trying to do that, but I think there will be a problem with injuries. You’ve been to both voluntary and mandatory events, and you see how each one is – and now, you wanna make guys go from June to February, or January?” Brian said. “That’s extra time of them doing stuff that they are being told to do and having the coaches around, and they're going to be working more and putting more strain on their body for those six months than they were ordinarily the way it was set up before.”
B doesn’t know if the union or the league (or both) is the main culprit, but you have to question things ‘if you truly care about the health of the player.’
“The NFL and a lot of those guys gotta get tired of people writing stories when they know it doesn't really make a big difference, and start being concerned more about the player,” Brian said. “A player not coming up to a voluntary minicamp…sometimes that player needs some rest, some damn time, but I think that'll all go away. If there was so much concern, will the concern come now? They're doing stuff for six months straight now, basically.”
“They kind of already are, dude; if you consider end of July is when camp starts, and the regular season ends middle of January,” JP said. “So I agree with you, dude – they’re already going about six months straight, longer with the playoffs. Add this on top of it and it’s more than seven.”
Exactly, and that’s why Brian thinks some of it should be voluntary.
“That's where my mindset comes in, where I will be on your side in one instance and then I'll be totally against you in the next instance, because it doesn't come down to a narrative, it has to come down to what's reality,” B said. “If you say you care about the health of the player, which everyone puts out, is this making it better or worse? I know the answer (which JP said is ‘cash’), and what I’m saying is let's stop presenting the BS and just say we’re trying to get more money – because let's be real: you give players more money, they'll do more stuff.”
“I think that's all this is and I think the players are unhappy; we don't really get locker room access this time of year with the 90-man roster, but I'd like to talk to players, probably off the record to find out what they think about it, because I don’t get it,” JP replied.
Brian’s mindset was also that players use this month break between OTA/minicamp and actual camp to spend summers with their families, and this will definitely eat into that time, and being a guy who almost never missed any offseason activities, he understands both sides of the coin of those needing and wanting rest and those who also want to always maximize themselves – so it falls on everyone, not just one segment of the players’ population.
“There are people that don't live here, and they get a chance to go home,” B said. “You have two little girls – every once in a while, you got somewhere to go and they don't really want you to go, and the sad face wins, especially if you know it's voluntary. I think fans and media people alike have to understand those people have real lives; they were humans before they were football players, and we have to understand that concept sometimes, but we get to the point where we get caught up in writing stories based off a narrative depending on what happens.”
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