This is an unusual training camp this year for all NFL teams to say the least. Typically camp would begin in late July, with pads donned on the third day of practice. But that’s if there was a full offseason behind them, complete with plenty of strength and conditioning, walk-thrus, and a minicamp.
Since none of that happened months ago, the players have had to play catch up over the past week. That work continues.
“We’re going to do what the rules allow us to do,” head coach Jon Gruden said over conference call Thursday. “Right now our idea of ramping them up is teaching them the system, having a lot of walk-thrus, and then our strength and conditioning coach is really in charge of ramping them up physically in the weight room and with speed and conditioning work. The ramp-up phase will graduate next week and then the following week, and hopefully, we’ll see some benefits along the way.”
The first preseason game was originally scheduled to take place on August 13, which is a week away. But the preseason was canceled, and now the team won’t even be in pads by that point.
“We can’t put a pad on until August 17th,” said Gruden. “It’s funny, that’s my birthday, so what a great day that will be. But we’re going to have to be smart because we’re going to have to go on the road and play Carolina a couple weeks later and obviously you want your men to be healthy. There are no preseason games. I don’t know how many times Josh Jacobs is going to be tackled live on our practice field, but we do need to get everybody some work and we need to be smart about it.”
That may seem like a good amount of time before pads go on, but consider that they would normally have had six weeks of OTA’s and minicamp practices in the offseason prior to camp, and in this format, that’s all packed into two weeks time.
The season opener is September 13th, which means once pads go on, the team will essentially get three weeks of what would be considered a somewhat normal camp experience before going into regular-season game week prep.
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