Kevin Stefanski is trying to toe the line between respecting his players' stance to boycott offseason practices and coaching his players on the field. (Cleveland Browns)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
The Browns pride themselves on making smart decisions based on advanced data, on staying ahead of the curve and doing things “outside the box,” on not continuing old practices just because they’ve always been done one way.
Well, they have a chance to put that corporate-speak into action and be an industry leader on the issue of offseason conditioning programs.
Not only can they embrace the NFLPA boycott of voluntary offseason programs and mandatory time on the practice field, they can endorse it. They can rewrite their own offseason program and eliminate plans for a mandatory minicamp or any field work until the team convenes for 2021 training camp.
Essentially, they can fine-tune the program they executed “on the fly” during the height of the coronavirus pandemic a year ago. Yes, the one that produced the first winning Browns season in 13 years and the first playoff victory on the road since 1969.
Was it coincidence? Possibly. Maybe. Who knows? If anything, the Browns proved players need not be beaten down in May and June to perform in December and January.
Follow the data
The truth is, players have griped about offseason programs – particularly OTA practices and mandatory minicamps – for decades. Part of it is financial. They’re not paid for showing up in April, May and June, unless their agents negotiated workout clauses tied to offseason program attendance.
OTA practices have always been “voluntary,” but players realized that boycotting them cost younger players opportunities for advancement and cast proven players as “disgruntled” or prima donnas. Odell Beckham Jr.’s absence from his first Browns offseason program – the year before the pandemic – certainly didn’t help bond him to the fabric of his new team. Eliminating voluntary programs entirely would eliminate the choice of whether or not to attend.
The more recent issue with offseason programs concerns player health and safety, and that becomes more pressing as the owners plow ahead with a 17-game schedule.
The pandemic season, which reduced offseason programs exclusively to remote learning and even eliminated preseason games, provided the NFLPA with some compelling data. NFLP President JC Tretter, the Browns’ indispensable center in the middle of their elite offensive line, has used the data as the basis for boycotting offseason programs.
In essays on the NFLPA Website and in numerous interviews, Tretter said concussions were down 30 percent in 2020 and missed-time injuries were down 23 percent. Those are significant reductions, impossible to ignore.
“We learned what we did last year, when it comes to health and safety, works,” Tretter said. “What it also shows is we had an extremely successful competitive season, too. The decrease in practice time, the virtual offseason, the acclimation [to full-scale training camp practices], all that stuff dictated by science worked in keeping us healthy and we had more competitive games, more scoring, more parity, more drama than any year before.
“When we search for answers on how to make the product better and how to keep players healthy, we have the answers. And we need to continue to build off those answers and not ignore what we just saw and learned from.”
Tretter also touched on a personal note. He has been plagued by a knee problem that kept him on the injury list virtually every week of the past two seasons and forced him to sit out regular-season practices each year, yet he hasn’t missed a snap in a regular- or post-season game in that time.
“Anecdotally, I feel the best I’ve felt in probably five years … mentally, physically,” Tretter said on March 31. “And I know a lot of players agree with that. But you need the data. This is what we did completely different than normal, and the data shows injuries were substantially better. We had healthier players. Injuries were either level or down in every category, concussions were down. And now we know the things the medical experts have been telling us work. There’s really no denying it anymore. You can avoid soft tissue injuries, concussions, heat-related ailments by following the science.”
The Browns’ dilemma
All of which places Browns coach Kevin Stefanski smack in the middle of a quandary.
Stefanski is a progressive coach who works for a progressive, analytics-driven front office that pulls data from all the resources its sports science specialists can provide. Stefanski is also a coach sensitive to the issues of his players.
Beyond all that, however, he is a football coach, and every football coach wants as much time on the field with his players as possible.
On a Zoom call on Tuesday, Stefanski teetered on the line of “following science” and coaching his players “on the grass.” He declined to say if he would impose a mandatory minicamp in May or June.
“I respect our players. I respect the voluntary portion of this,” Stefanski said. “You also know I am a coach and I think we have really outstanding coaches here who cannot wait to get on the grass with our players. We will figure it out as it goes, but we are just going to make sure we are in the here and now as we go.”
For now, Phase 1 of the 2021 nine-week NFL offseason program calls for four weeks of virtual classrooms and weight training. The Browns are one of 19 teams boycotting the weight training, but all teams are participating in the two hour-a-day virtual class rooms.
Phase 2 (May 17-21) involves non-contact position drills on the field. The Browns are boycotting that.
Everything will come to a head at Phase 3 (May 24 through June 18), which consists of 10 voluntary OTA practices on the field capped off with a three-day mandatory minicamp. Missing a mandatory minicamp subjects players to automatic fines, per the CBA.
I suspect the league and NFLPA will arrive at a compromise prior to that point. They worked so hard together to overcome the hardships of the pandemic and be the only American professional sports league to complete its entire season schedule in 2021. I can’t see them fighting each other now.
In the meantime, though, the Browns should be an industry leader and publicly support the changes Tretter proposes. Follow the science.