NFL Training Camps Underway; Majority Now at "Home"

As of today nine NFL training camps are underway, at least for rookies, and by the weekend the majority of teams will have their full squads beginning the two-a-day regimen, or what passes for two-a-days in this era.

While the mystique of "camp" lives on, the reality is that in the past decade there has been a major shift in what it really means.

Two areas where the greatest change has occurred are training camp location and the practice schedule. Or basically, everything but heat, sweat and injuries.

As detailed in a recent press release from the NFL PR department--and noted by Patrick Smyth of Denver Broncos PR via his Twitter feed (@psmyth12)--17 teams this year will hold training camp at their permanent facilities. This figure is up from just four teams in the year 2000.

Driving this change is the continued improvement and amenities at team training facilities and the sophistication of offseason strength and conditioning programs. Put simply, when NFL players are spending four days per week at their facilities from March to July, working out together and studying the offense and defense, there isn't much need to pack up, move to a remote location, whip everybody into shape and build team unity. The players are already in terrific shape and by the time they hit the field for the first training camp practice they are working through an installation they have already experienced in May and June during their Organized Team Activities, or OTAs.

In 2003 with the Denver Broncos we made the switch from our training camp home of 20 years, the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, to stay home and train at the permanent facility at Dove Valley. Once the change was made it was remarkable how much more efficient things were without having to move the entire football operations and other football-related business operations to a new location. We typically spent as much as a week getting set up and working through things that didn't function properly (i.e., computer systems).

Sure, there was always a sense of camaraderie and team-building at UNC, but that was greatly overshadowed by the aforementioned inefficiencies for what had also become a much shorter period of time. It seems we were getting ready to tear-down and move back to Dove Valley shortly after we got set up, in contrast to the six-week camps of the '70s and early '80s.

The latter point is an important one, as the schedule now includes far fewer true two-a-day sessions and fewer practices in pads over what is now just a three- or four-week period. The entire experience is now geared more toward perfecting the offensive and defensive schemes and learning to be efficient working as a team. By this point the coaches have hours of video to evaluate players from the OTA sessions, and training camp continues that process, followed by preseason games to add game speed and reacting to an unfamilar opponent to the evaluation.

To be fair, it has been noted by the well-respected Mike Signora of NFL PR in his Twitter feed (@signoranfl) that the last four Super Bowl champions went away for training camp. While I don't think all 32 teams will train at home at any time in the near future, the previous point is more a nod to the fact there are some unique traditions that make going away the better option for some teams, as in the Steelers' 43-year run at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa. And some teams' facilities still cannot accommodate training camp, if for no other reason than the challenge of housing and food service.

But the move to teams training at their permanent facilities is a trend that is not expected to reverse any time soon. If a franchise has all the elements in place or available near its permanent facility, it is likely to prefer that location over the time, cost and inefficiency of moving away for training camp.

--Paul Kirk/ProLink Sports
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