The Patriots will lose a pair of OTA days for violating the offseason rules. Given that the offseason rules can be violated in many ways, we wanted to find out what the Patriots did.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, it was a meeting violation. According to the source, an observer from the NFL Players Association believed that one of the optional early offseason meetings was a violation, because the 15-minute meeting in question (a special-teams session) was made visible on the internal schedule.
In the opinion of the NFLPA, placing the meeting on the formal schedule converted it from “optional” to “mandatory.”
The violation, per the source, had nothing to do with activities on the practice field, including whether or not there was impermissible contact.
Given the consequences, it was an unforced error that forces the Patriots to lose 20 percent of their OTA sessions for 2023.