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Former Raiders
coach John Rauch
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Competition in the NFL isn’t just between teams. Sometimes, it can be between
coaches and their own players, and the best example is the upsurge in offseason programs
that teams have instituted.
When I first started covering pro football in the late 1960s, coaches had complete
control. There was no free agency, so players stayed with a team as long as the team
wanted them. If a player wanted to have a good career, he had to do whatever the coach
wanted.
Sometimes, what the coach wanted was extreme. In 1967, when I was covering the Oakland
Raiders, head coach John Rauch didn’t break training camp until three days before the
first game of the regular season — and he had morning and afternoon practices that
day before camp broke. That was no surprise. Rauch had two-a-days virtually every day of
training camp.
Rauch’s immediate strategy worked very well. The Raiders were a superbly
conditioned team. They opened the season with a 51-0 blitz of the Broncos, lost just one
game in the regular season and finished it in the Super Bowl.
But the grind also produced a tremendous number of injuries over the next couple of
years, some of them to key players. For instance, the Raiders lost two stars, CB Kent
McCloughan and DT Dan Birdwell, to knee injuries. DT Tom Keating, the quickest inside
lineman I’ve ever seen, tore his Achilles tendon and missed a year.
When he returned, Keating was a good player but not the dominating force he’d been
earlier.
No coach would dare drive a team that hard these days, of course.
The NFL Players Association has rules that limit the number of days for training camp,
and if a coach gets the reputation of working players too hard, he’ll lose players to
free agency and not be able to lure other free agents to his team. Henry Jordan once said
of his coach, Vince Lombardi, "He treats us all the same — like dogs."
Lombardi’s approach wouldn’t play today.
But coaches have found a way around some of the rules. Officially, for instance, teams
are limited to four days of mandatory minicamps in the offseason, but there are other
minicamps and offseason programs that are voluntary in name only.
A star player can sometimes get away with missing a camp. Colts RB Edgerrin James chose
to stay in Miami instead of going to Indianapolis for one "voluntary" workout
and, though he got ripped by Colts head coach Jim Mora and QB Peyton Manning, James
isn’t going to lose his starting job. At the other end of the scale, third-year DT
Reggie McGrew missed a 49ers minicamp, perhaps because he didn’t want to let
everybody see how much weight he’d gained. McGrew’s already tenuous grip on a
roster spot wasn’t helped by this course of action.
Between James and McGrew, there are a large number of players who dare not offend the
coach by staying away from offseason camps and programs. The coach is still the one who
determines playing time, which also determines the length of a player’s career and
the amount of money he makes.
Coaches have a good reason for insisting on these minicamps and programs: In an era of
great turnover, it’s more important than ever that players are together for extended
periods.
In Oakland, Jon Gruden has resurrected a dormant Raiders team by building a strong work
ethic, replacing the underachievers with players like QB Rich Gannon, who not only works
hard on the practice field but devotes many hours off the field to studying game films,
almost as extensively as a coach.
"I believe it’s important for players to be together, not only on the field
but in the locker room," Gruden said when we talked earlier this year. "When we
bring in so many new players every year, it’s important for them to get to know the
players who are already here before they go out on the field in the fall. When we get in a
game, I want players to feel that they’re not just playing for themselves. I want
them thinking that they don’t want to let down the guys they know."
There’s no question that attitude helped the Raiders get to the AFC championship,
and there’s no question that any team that advances to the championship level has to
have the same attitude. Football is the ultimate team game.
But there’s also a line to be drawn between what the coach thinks is best for the
team and what is best for his players.
Because of the money involved, players work much harder on offseason conditioning,
notwithstanding McGrew, than they once did.
Players don’t have to get offseason jobs to support their families, which used to
be a given. They can spend their time on rigorous conditioning programs that not only
prepare them better for the season but make it possible for them to extend their careers.
Some players — Jerry Rice is perhaps the best example — work harder with their
own programs than they ever do in team camps and workouts.
For most players, the team-mandated programs aren’t necessary for physical
conditioning, and they may even be counterproductive mentally. A player like Gannon may
not require a change of pace to keep his batteries activated, but many players benefit
from getting away for a time from a game that makes such physical and mental demands on a
player.
How can the coaches’ and players’ desires be balanced? For openers, forget
about the meaningless distinction between mandatory and voluntary workouts. The NFLPA
should negotiate exactly how much offseason time can be required, and negotiate reasonable
payments to players for their time.
Then, maybe coaches and players could cooperate and save the competition for the
playing field.
Glenn Dickey is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle who has covered pro
football since 1967. E-mail him at Gdickey@sfchronicle.com |
