With the NFL lockout winding down as an apparent deal may be completed in the next few days, details of the terms are starting to leak out. One part of the deal is that apparently the players wanted to eliminate two-a-days practices from the arsenal of things a team could force them to do. If you don’t know what two-a-days are, it’s usually at the beginning of training camp where they require the players to practice twice in one day. This is not only practiced in the NFL, but I remember doing it for a week in high school and in college. Two-a-days have been around for a long time, but most players hate them.
Well New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott is not one of them. When news of this leaked out Scott, said that players who were pushing for this under the guise of “player safety” are just being wimps. Scott’s comments indicated that players were trying to make football a softer sport, and create an easier environment in training camp.
“I get concerned you’re making football players weaker because you don’t push them past that threshold,” Scott said. “I get concerned with the same thing with the quarterback stuff, that they turn it into flag football; they turn it into little pansy stuff.” ~ http://www.profootballtalk.com
Scott comes from the old school way of thinking, and believes that a tough training camp builds strong players which lead to strong teams. You can’t argue with Scott’s passion and willingness to endure the tough practices two times a day, but he may be a little bit off with his reasoning. Two-a- day practices were initially started because in the past teams didn’t really conduct that many off season workouts, so when training camp started they would do two-a-days to fast track players getting back in shape.
With all of the work players do in the offseason two-a-days may not be necessary anymore, but they definitely can’t hurt. Most of the time one practice is in pads and the other practice is in shorts, shoulder pads, and helmets; there may only be a few days where both practices are in full pads. To Scott’s point though, players specifically seeking to end those types of practices specifically speaks to a lack of mental toughness on their part, which validates Bart Scott calling them wimps.
