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Football thoughts

Washington Redskins TE Chris Cooley blogs the first day of training camp.

A couple funny notes from our training staff. A player cannot call in sick to work; they will actually have someone come pick you up from your room and take you to the hospital. Also it’s a hundred dollar fine for a player who does not record his weight before and after every practice. The player is responsible for weighing and recording them on a little chart. I’m complacent so I’m sure I’ll be in debt a few hundred to the Skins...whatever.

We have a bed check every night at 11:00 P.M. Coaches will be roaming the halls and checking everyone’s room. Yes, we are all fifteen years old so I guess that is important. I mean, I’ll check into the locker room around 6:00 A.M. so it’s gonna be pretty hard to go out at night. Bed check?

The mickey mouse stuff isn;t the only reason players may be in a bad mood. SI writer Stefan Fatsis reports on having tried out as a placekicker for the Broncos:

Once they stopped laughing at the gray-haired guy in the size-7 cleats, my teammates saw me as a megaphone: I could correct the vast public misperceptions about what they do. The players wanted me to understand that apart from Sundays, which are simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating, their working lives are a seemingly endless string of unpleasantness: injuries, reminders from coaches that their jobs are on the line, distrust of their bosses, disgust over being scheduled like preschoolers, unfathomable psychological pressure. “You’re just seeing the worst part,” wide receiver Charlie Adams said to me about training camp. “Although the season kind of sucks, too.”

Bronco after Bronco compared college to the NFL. In the former, players said, coaches tried to maximize their potential. In the latter, coaches sucked them dry. Starting linebacker Ian Gold had a lucrative six-year deal. But he wore a shell of embittered indifference that he blamed on an institutional lack of integrity and loyalty. “You lay it on the line for these people, for this organization, and all it is is a moneymaking machine,” Gold said. “They’re looking for your replacement the day you step foot in this door.”

The NFL rolls that reality into its Lombardiesque image of toughness. From the absence of guaranteed contracts to the revolving locker room door, players are kept on an emotional knife’s edge in an attempt to breed desire and desperation. The players want compassion and communication. They get pressure and paranoia instead. As the Broncos camp wore on, the No. 2 quarterback, Bradlee Van Pelt, crumbled before my eyes, his every mistake compounded by a racing mind. “[The coaches] could calm your fears or calm your anxiety,” he said to me late in camp. “But they don’t choose to do it.”

Which is a big part of why I don’t agree with those who criticize Brett Favre for not being “loyal” to the Packers.

In other news:

Washington Redskins defensive end Phillip Daniels will miss the season after tearing a left knee ligament Sunday during the first practice of training camp.

Daniels, a starter, was hurt on the initial play of 7-on-7 offense vs. defense drills.

The Redskins lost another defensive end, reserve Alex Buzbee, to a season-ending injury during their afternoon practice. Buzbee, who went to Georgetown, ruptured his Achilles’ tendon.

To lose a starter on the first play of the first drill of the first day of training camp, for lack of a better word, sucks. To lose 2 DEs on the first day of practice really sucks.