Back when Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell played in the NFL, training camp was a lot different. A tight end for the Giants, Cowboys and Lions from 1999 through 2008, Campbell played in an era when two-a-days were the industry standard for summer practices.
The NFL and NFLPA agreed to do away with two-a-days back in 2011, ending the grueling toll it took on players, both in body and mind. Most modern NFL players don’t have any idea of what those days were like, with two full-contact practices stretching up to eight hours over the course of the same day.
Campbell can laugh about it now, and the Lions coach did just that prior to Tuesday morning’s practice.
“Listen, the days of the two-a-days – at some point in this camp, I’m going to put up the old two-a-day schedule so our players can see it and the two scripts for the practices,” Campbell said with a smile. “But there again, they don’t know what that is either. They don’t know the reality of it, they know what we’re in right now and so, everything is relative.”
Campbell laid out the typical practice schedule under head coach Bill Parcells, who has been a big influence on Campbell.
“Going full pads twice a day, the first practice is three hours, and the second one you go back way down and go two and a half hours. If you’re with Coach Parcells, you’re really lucky, he’ll take the pants off in the afternoon. You’re still in shoulder pads and it’s still two and a half hours but, ‘Pants are off guys,’ and that was like, what a treat! You just slip the shorts on with the shoulder pads and here we go, man. Nine-on-seven. But that was life, right?”
Campbell doesn’t miss those days, nor does he want the NFL to soften its stance on keeping things like 2-a-days a thing of the past.
“I think we are better for it, man. The body – you know this game has changed so much and the athletes are so much different, and I just think that they’re geared so much higher now than it was back then. Everything felt like a marathon and the game was so much more in a box and downhill, run game, power, two back, heavy personnel – there was just so much more of that, and then once the spread offenses came in, the athletes changed, and so I think this is a good thing where we are at.”