We’ve heard plenty from Bart Scott and others about the reduction of two-a-days in training camp. We haven’t seen much talk about the reduction of padded practice during the regular season.
Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes that teams are only allowed to practice in pads one day a week during the regular season. During the last five weeks of the regular season, teams can practice in pads one day a week in only three of those weeks.
In practice, this won’t have a monster impact. In today’s era, teams don’t practice in pads much later in the season anyway. They also don’t practice in pads more than once a week very often.
Still, the changes are significant in that they protect the players from coaches who like to see a lot of hitting in practice. We’re simply not going back to the days where players hit in practice every day.
It’s also worth noting players will get eased into training camp. There will be no hitting for the first three days of camp this year. Two practices will be allowed in a single day, but one of them has to be a light walk through.