The Do's and Don'ts of NFL OTAs

Robots. Grievances. Unexpected injuries. Quarterback controversies that will boil over before Memorial Day.

OTAs aren't as easy for teams as they used to be. 

Gone are the days when players lifted weights, blocked sleds, memorized plays and milled around team headquarters for a few weeks in the spring. Minicamps and OTAs have become minefields as coaches search for the best way to prepare players for the season without risking injury. Some teams have gone high-tech. Others have gone old school (too old school in some cases, according to the collective bargaining agreement). And no detail is too minute for the fans, who gobble up every nugget of news and are sure to blame that Week 7 loss on the time when the coach gave the boys Thursday afternoon off in early June.

Minicamps are like snowflakes: No two are alike. But there are rules of thumb every team should follow to make a modern minicamp safe, efficient, contract-compliant and optimal to the needs of today's players and NFL. Here are the do's and don'ts:

DON'T name a starting quarterback if you don't want to

"When you have a choice to make and don't make it, that is in itself a choice." So said William James. And who are we to question the father of sports analytics?

Oh wait, that was Bill James. William James was the 19th-century philosopher who influenced everything from modern psychology to Rush lyrics. His school of thought was pragmatism, as in: You have to be pragmatic about your quarterback controversy, otherwise it will divide your locker room and define/ruin your season.

Browns head coach Hue Jackson has nothing to gain by naming a starting quarterback two months before the start of training camp. If he named Robert Griffin III the starter, it would send a message. If he named Josh McCown (or Cody Kessler or Connor Shaw) the starter, it would also send a message. The message that there is no starter also sends a message, but it's the one Jackson wants to send: Options are open, expectations are in check, competition is crucial.

Chip Kelly has taken a similar approach, declaring on KNBR's Murph and Mac show Friday that he has "no idea" who the 49ers' starting quarterback will be (via CSNBayArea.com's Matt Maiocco), couching the message carefully with Colin Kaepernick's injury status. The Jets have also been mum, perhaps because their most obvious Week 1 starter is still a free agent.

The Eagles, meanwhile, have been forced to bend over backward to name Sam Bradford the starter while conceding that all three of their quarterbacks (Bradford, Carson Wentz and Chase Daniel) are splitting reps. If everyone is equally splitting reps, and "reps" consist of seven-yard out routes against air, why name anyone the starter? To soothe egos and unruffle feathers. You shouldn't have to do that in May.

Once training camp begins, the beat writers can start publishing daily completion rates and snap-by-snap recaps of who got the first-team reps. Until then, coaches should keep an open mind, or at least pretend that's what they are doing.

DON'T try to circumvent the OTA rules

The collective bargaining agreement forbids contact drills during OTAs and minicamps. They are unethical. They are counterproductive. Contact drills in early June do not "toughen the boys up," no matter what your high school coach thought 30 years ago. They expose players to injury and health risks.

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press/Associated Press

The NFL is investigating the Ravens for reportedly putting their rookies in full pads before a non-contact punt return drill during rookie camp. The team's official story is that coaches did not realize they were violating the CBA, per ESPN.com's Jamison Hensley, and that once they figured it out, they contacted a union rep and immediately had the rookies remove the pads. 

Uh-huh. John Harbaugh doesn't know the particulars of minicamp rules after nine years on the job.

The rules are so strict—veterans are not even supposed to wear helmets during the first two weeks of OTAs—that it's hard to "accidentally" pad up a whole squad. And the Ravens were padding the rookies for a non-contact drill, even though pads equal hitting about 99.999 percent of the time in football practices. The rule against padded practices was put in place specifically to stop slippery-slope situations: Today the rookies are just getting used to running with the pads, tomorrow a 90-minute Oklahoma drill.

For every coach who has embraced sports science or is sick of losing players to injury before Father's Day, there is another coach who thinks he can get an edge by ignoring the lab-coat geeks and going full pads, full speed and full contact right away, like they did in the good ol' days. It doesn't work. It's bad for the players. And while some fans might love to hear that the coach is taking a tough-guy approach, all fans want to see the first-round pick healthy for the start of the season.

DO get scientific

OTAs are a great time to screen incoming players and veterans for everything from undiscovered past injuries to muscular asymmetry to sleep apnea. It's a chance to establish each player's neurological baselines for concussions. It's a time to measure functional mobility, respiratory capacity and dozens of other factors that will affect each player's injury rate, recovery needs and peak capacity. Best of all, it's a time to optimize each player's personal regimen to make them stronger, faster, healthier and less injury-prone.

Research suggests that soft-tissue injuries in the NFL can be reduced by as much as 70 percent by performing some simple tests—like jumping off a platform—then individualizing exercises and drills to improve their biomechanics, correct any left-right asymmetries that have made one side of the body stronger than the other and so on.

The knock on these tests and drills is that there is just no time for them. But they are a better use of OTA time than trying to sneak pads onto rookies or cram an extra 20 minutes of film study into a Thursday afternoon in May. Nothing else that happens in the offseason matters if a player tears his ACL on July 30. An ounce of prevention is good. Two or three ounces is better.

DO get experimental

The Steelers are now using tackling-dummy robots during OTAs: padded, remote-control Daleks capable of moving and cutting that can be safely "thudded" and can simulate the motion of receivers, running backs or anyone else on the field.

Teams don't have to risk the Rise of the Machines to modernize minicamp drills. Some teams use moving "flyswatters," carried by coaches or interns, to restrict the quarterback's vision and force him to adjust the trajectory of passes during air drills. Other teams roll giant beach balls—they look like Rovers from The Prisoner—toward defenders during open-field drills to test their reaction to approaching "blockers."

Newfangled drills generally work in harmony with a science-oriented approach to training and conditioning. They provide new teaching tools. Programming the robots to run a play and making the defense chase the robots is better than lecturing about the play in a meeting room. They keep everyone's mind fresh, from the veterans who have seen it all before to coaches who might still be using the drills Bud Carson taught them in 1988.

As for those Steelers Daleks, instead of saying "Exterminate! Exterminate!" they should be programmed to say "I am Vontaze Burfict!" A little extra motivation can't hurt.

DON'T get too conservative

The Dolphins opted for a rookie camp with no field work whatsoever. On the one hand, that eliminates the minicamp injury risk and provides peace of mind to rookies who are not yet under contract. On the other hand, three days of nonstop lectures and meetings is not a very effective use of time.

As the popularity of TED Talks suggests, information is best disseminated in tight 15- to 20-minute nuggets. After that, learners have to be engaged, whether they are kindergartners, MBA candidates or linebackers. Many coaches have scaled back the lengths of film-and-whiteboard meetings from 90 minutes or more to 45 minutes or so. After that, athletes will go into an open-eyed fugue if they don't stretch, do a little cardio or (ideally) hit the field for a non-impact walkthrough that implements some of those classroom concepts.

Minicamp is a great time for "How to not end up on TMZ.com" seminars: reviewing team policies, listening to the ex-player who lost all of his money and so forth. These seminars can be important, but if you cram too many of them into a short period, athletes will either tune out or feel like they are being treated like potential criminals. Ever watch three or four "workplace compliance" videos in a row? Even if you are a model employee, the experience can leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Chip Kelly may have as many zany ideas as brilliant ones, but he encourages his coaches to think more like teachers than drill sergeants and takes a research-based approach to designing OTA schedules. But you don't need sports science to figure out that there's a sweet spot somewhere between too much OTA activity and too little.

DO set a tone

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press/Associated Press

This low-impact, non-contact sports science stuff can get a little hippie-drippy-touchy-feely. It is still football, folks—a sport that requires intensity and precision. That's why Jason Garrett went into drill-instructor mode when the Cowboys weren't doing jumping jacks properly. There's nothing wrong with monitoring stress loads, chasing tacklebots and demanding synchronized jumping jacks with a loud cadence. In fact, these things all go together.

The modern approach to minicamp is a detail-oriented approach. Players have to buy in even (or especially) when they are running at half-speed in shorts. If the coach insists that jumping jacks are important, it will make it easier for him to stress that hydration and note-taking are important. By late July, players will have no doubt that route running, pad level and play recognition are important and that every variable is part of the equation.

DON'T stand too close to the Jaguars' top draft pick

Because you may get crushed by a falling meteor or something.

The poor Jaguars do everything right. They take a scientific approach to OTAs. When Dante Fowler tore his ACL on the first day of camp last spring, the Jaguars scaled back on-field activities to a minimum. Yet Jalen Ramsey managed to tear a meniscus during Jaguars rookie camp this year. Next year, the Jaguars' top pick will somehow crack his spine while hugging Roger Goodell at the draft podium.

Kidding aside, players will always be susceptible to injuries, whether they take the field in May or on August 1. All teams can do is continue to get smarter. It's not sexy, but most of what forges an NFL team from a bunch of top athletes into a champion is not sexy. Unless you are really into robots.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.