The Pencil Neck
Hall of Fame
yeah I get the "they are bigger and faster" blah blah blah...but they are playing against guys like them...that are just as big and just as fast...they didnt get breaks while in college...they still had to practice hard in the offseason...they should be used to that by the time they get to the NFL and it being the next step...it should get harder..not easier...
But thats just my opinion...
Just a bit of history here... back in the old days NO ONE practiced hard in the offseason. One of the reasons training camps were set up they way they were back then was to get everybody back into shape.
Remember, most guys in the old days had to have an offseason job in order to make enough money to make ends meet. That was into the 60's/70's. They got out of shape in the offseason.
Jerry Rice was the first guy I remember really making a career out of working out and preparing and playing football. He was an oddity at the time, a guy who stayed in great shape year round.
It took a lot to get people to really work out intelligently. Even today, there are a lot of ill-concieved routines, but back in the day, the lifting routines people were following were based on bodybuilding routines as opposed to actual strength and performance routines. I remember David Boston, a guy with a great future, who basically went all out following a bodybuilding type of routine and destroyed his athleticism.
The medical advances allow people to come back from thing they would have ended their careers 20 years ago, but that also means that the medical staff are less willing to let guys play through things.
On the other other hand, the drug testing doesn't allow players to take the kinds of pain killers and performance enhancers that guys as recent as Favre could get addicted to. You want guys to get de-wussified, all you got to do is give them the right drugs... drugs they can't get ahold of these days.