Catching up with Kehl V.

The day after…

“It’s a long story why, but I decided to interrupt recounting ‘why I play the game’ and give briefly ‘the day after a game of an NFL player.’  I will return to training camp and what I found there next week.

In all, an NFL week isn’t all that different than a week of college football…it’s just bigger, longer, and more thorough.  It’s a weekly cycle in which we try to peak physically and very importantly mentally for the game on Sunday.  In college there are time restrictions enforced by the NCAA – teams are limited to 20 hours Monday through Thursday…20 hours of meetings, practice, lifting, etc.  No such restriction in the league.

Monday is usually the day after the game and starts at 8:30 if you’re a rookie (note: at BYU we had the blessing of having the day after a game – Sunday – completely off from football, for obvious reasons).  That doesn’t seem early (which it really isn’t) but after a football game, especially at this level, your body really just doesn’t want to get up that next day.  I remember the first ‘day after’ a game of high school football – my body felt like I had been jumped and battered by about a dozen guys (11 to be exact).  That great feeling swelled larger in college, and now larger still in the NFL.  It looks like a physical game…and it feels like a riot. 

Anyway, the running and lifting starts at 8:30.  It’s not really all that intense, but it’s always interesting to go in there and see which of your body parts still work, which joints still function, and which muscles feel punctured – every week it’s a new surprise.  When you look in the mirror there are a myriad of bruises, blemishes, cuts, scrapes and wounds you seriously didn’t even know about.  And so you struggle through the run and lift, not because it’s hard but because your body is kinda like a plane with a few engines out. 

After the lift we have about an hour or so for lunch.  The food is pretty good, but as you can imagine, it gets a bit old after about 2 weeks.  But, it’s the same food every day, every week, all year.  The special teams meeting comes next and lasts 30 minutes.  This can be pleasure or pain – all depending on how you did the day before.  Make a good tackle – you and every guy on the team gets to see it.  Get knocked on your can – you and every guy on the team gets to see it.  Over, and over, and over again, accompanied by the special teams coordinator telling you in ‘choice’ words what he feels about your play.  Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to experience both the good and the bad of these meetings.  It’s a simple formula really – ball out and then you can sit back, relax and enjoy the meeting (easier said than done at this level of the game – I’ve probably been knocked down more times already in the 5 regular season and 4 preseason games I’ve played in here than all 50 I played in at BYU). 

Next comes a team meeting wherein the head coach tells the team, in ‘choice’ words, what he thought about the game, displaying various stats and figures to support his opinion.  Then we separate to Defense and Offense and watch parts of the film before separating again to position groups to watch the game in full.  Every play is reviewed, critiqued, analyzed and evaluated – good and mostly the bad.  Good plays are usually watched once – bad plays usually 5 -10 times (if you get blown up, or knocked down, the coach will usually stop the film at that exact point, so he can go back and forth over it several times). 

After this fun video session, the team takes the field for “corrections.” This is a run-through in jerseys and helmets wherein the plays executed poorly offensively are re-run – giving those players a chance to physically see and ‘correct’ those errors.  Defensively, the show team offense (comprised of back-up defensive players) runs through the plays we didn’t defend correctly so we can physically see and ‘correct’ our fits and assignments.  This lasts about 30 minutes and is the last commitment of the day, if you’re a veteran.  If you’re rookie, you get another hour-long meeting called ‘Player Development” – a lengthy weekly meeting wherein you are taught things I honestly learned in like kindergarten, but NFL players country wide seem to not know and or understand (just check the papers or Sportscenter each day and you’ll know what I mean).  After this, the day ends, about 3:00 – and it’s time to go home, rest, recoup, recover, and try to figure out how to get your limbs to move again.”