NFL Summer Sports Training
NFL summer sports training camps no longer arrive with the same sense of urgency and intensity. Year-round mini-camps, "volunteer" practice sessions, passing schools, and weight-training workouts relegate training camps to just another page on the calendar.
No longer are the camps as grueling or as long as the two-a-day grinds that coincided with six-game pre-seasons and served to whip fat players into shape.
The trend is to limit contact and preserve bodies for the long regular season and expanded playoffs. The Minnesota Vikings don't report until Aug. 1 and spend only 19 days in camp. The two-time world champion Denver Broncos do not scrimmage.
Yet training camps remain the same in one regard. They mark the first time coaches are allowed to put the pads on players and find out whether all the off-season book learning and non-contact drills translate into real playing skill. The return of the Cleveland Browns is the early highlight. The first expansion team with a history is the first team to open camp, as rookies report. The Bears join several other teams as the first to welcome full squads.
Camps are starting a week later than usual this year because the NFL season opens the week after Labor Day. There is only one week instead of the usual two weeks between the conference championship games and Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta.
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