In an ordinary offseason, NFL players already would have spent plenty of time at minicamps and organized team activities, had film study with coaches and workouts with the strength and conditioning staff. During the lockout there’s been none of that, and Browns tackle Joe Thomas says there’s something to be said for the way things have gone this year.
In Thomas’s opinion, the ordinary offseason schedule gives players more work than they need, to the point that it might be counterproductive.
“You certainly don’t need as much as we had,” Thomas said on 102.3 the Ticket in Denver, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “Even in my rookie year, by the time the regular season started I’m thinking, ‘Man is this thing ever going to start?’ I didn’t even feel like a rookie at the end of training camp because you go through six weeks of training camp, OTA’s, two minicamps, you’ve got preseason games, and the volume is incredible. It’s something you’ve never seen before. Probably more practices than you had in your entire college career up to the first regular season game.”
Players might be rusty at the beginning of the season, Thomas says, but they also might be fresh at the end.
“You kinda take a step back and you get a chance to think about other things and refocus your mind and get your body a little bit fresh,” Thomas said. “The season is going to feel shorter and your body is going to be healthier at the end of the year and I think the mind will be a little fresher. You may see, at the beginning the football not being as good, but at the end I think you may see guys that are more fresh and more ready to go after it.”
From Thomas’s perspective, that’s the lockout’s silver lining.
