Cleveland Browns center JC Tretter, who serves as the president of the NFL Players Association, called for the end of in-person organized offseason activities last month. The NFL didn’t hold OTAs in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Tretter wants to keep it that way.
Denver Broncos safety Justin Simmons thinks that’s a little extreme.
“I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I feel like that’s a little intense,” Simmons said on Dec. 31. “Obviously for me, I’ve been in it for a while now. I have a pretty good grasp of defensive calls and offensive formations and things of that nature. So, maybe there isn’t as much benefit, but I’m thinking about guys like OJ [Michael Ojemudia] who I know would have benefited off of a full OTAs, a full training camp.
“I understand this year with the pandemic how that wasn’t accessible, but moving forward, if there is a way, in my opinion, if there is a way to safely have those things for the individual teams, I feel like that is something that we should do because the game’s already hard enough with everything going on. I think limiting practices and meetings and things of that nature in the offseason would only hurt. Then you also talk about how the NFL guys spend their offseasons, and I think that just causes more area for I guess trouble, but that’s just my opinion.”
Broncos outside linebacker Bradley Chubb pointed out that veteran teams would benefit from virtual meetings and young, inexperienced teams would struggle without on-field practice in the spring.
“You have to find a happy medium because at the end of the day, this is the NFL and you want guys to perform how they feel like they could perform the best,” Chubb said on Jan. 1. “I don’t really know what the answer is on what to do or what not to do, but I feel having an offseason program helps those younger teams like us and it would be beneficial for sure — I’m not trying to make a decision on whether we should have it or not.”
Simmons and Chubb didn’t want to go too far and cause any trouble with their NFLPA president, but it’s clear they both want OTAs to stick around.
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