The NFL season is looming and players are starting to meet with team officials and staff, and together they are preparing for the upcoming season. This will be the first official full NFL season under the new CBA. Coaches and teams are just getting used to some of the new rules that the NFL and NFLPA collectively came up with to better suit the needs for both the players and coaches. Multiple issues have been met and discussed and have been fixed with this new CBA and both sides seem positive with the outcome that has come about. They have signed the deal for the next ten years, therefore, we will not have to worry about last off-season’s debacle for the next decade.

Would you not find it odd if, back when you were in school, your teacher came up to you and told you to stop studying? And he felt your studying was so problematic that you had to leave because you had been studying for too long? This is just what happened at Carolina’s OTA’s last week. Ron Rivera, the Panthers’ coach, did something that he probably never even thought of in his coaching lifetime – he had to kick players out of the team’s facility due to the fact that they were studying for too long.

According to the new collective bargaining agreement, players in the NFL are only allowed to be “studying” their respective playbooks and schemes for a six-hour limit per day. Thus, at 1:30, Ron had this to say; “I went downstairs and said, ‘Okay, everybody who’s been here since 7, you’ve got to go. So those guys got up and left.”

The Panthers are currently in Phase Three of their organized team activities. This is when teams are allowed to hold 10 non-mandatory practices over three weeks. Players only wear helmets for these practices, and they must not go over two hours. According to the CBA, “Players are allowed to be at their team’s facility for six hours, plus a half-hour for lunch and showers.”

This newly mandated CBA is meant to help give players more time to recuperate. The days when players would go through “two-a-days” are no more. The players now have more time to themselves, and the conditions in which they practice have been said to be safer for their health. At least that’s the theory.

So next time you feel like you have too much work on your hands and that you are overdoing it, just take a break, because it could potentially be better for you in the end. Just tell your boss, “The NFL does it”!

…and that is the last word.

@LastWordAnto

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