There will be no minicamp for the Detroit Lions in 2020, nor will there be for any other NFL team. The league canceled the summer rite of football passage as part of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
What exactly are the Lions and the other teams missing out on by not having minicamp?
The primary difference between the typical OTA session, which the Lions are conducting virtually in this strange offseason, and minicamp is the volume of time allowed between players and coaches. In minicamp, coaches are allowed up to 10 hours a day of direct contact with players, versus just two per day in OTAs. That includes both on-field instruction and meeting room time.
There is still no live contact allowed during the minicamp practice sessions. One-on-one drills between offense and defense are still prohibited and the players are not in full pads, just like the regular OTAs. Shorts and shells are the norm.
It’s a more structured, standardized schedule that all teams follow:
- Player physicals on Monday, but no on-field work
- Practices Tuesday-Thursday, no practice allowed on Friday
- Allowed two practices totaling 3.5 hours on the field each day
- Wednesday practice is walk-through only
Minicamp is also the first time the media is required to be permitted by the team to have access to watching the sessions. The Lions typically permit some media coverage of OTAs but it’s very limited. Most of the time, minicamp is the first time anyone sees the team in Lions jerseys since the end of the last season.
All of that will have to wait for training camp this year, which remains tentatively on schedule for late July in Allen Park.