With OTAs set to kick off in the NFL on April 19, the Denver Broncos players have revealed through a statement that they will be skipping this voluntary program. The Denver players, led by the NFLPA, cited concerns about COVID-19 as the reason for their refusal to appear.
This, after the same players (for the most part) came to the Broncos’ UCHealth Training Facility every day last fall, going through the team’s rigorous COVID-19 safety and security protocols. Few Broncos dealt with the virus during the 2020 season, although some coaches did.
Players like defensive lineman Shelby Harris, who missed a month of football as a result, caught the virus outside the Broncos building, but were smart and conscientious enough to inform the team when he realized he had been exposed to the bug. Less than a week later, he tested positive.
COVID-19 is a very real virus and it’s a threat, but the Broncos turned Dove Valley into an almost impenetrable fortress against it. The NFL should be commended for its handling of the pandemic, especially the Broncos, and its focus on player safety last fall.
A Bronco among the collective who will not report to ‘voluntary’ OTAs next week is doing so with a kind of protest on social media. On Tuesday, fledgling linebacker Alexander Johnson took to Twitter to voice his skepticism about skipping OTAs, while revealing a controversial opinion about the pandemic. He’s still going to close the ranks around his teammates and skip OTAs.
Johnson continued on Twitter“I am absolutely rocking with my team and support my teammates that they are not personal based on all the other factors that help the individual players, just not for apologies around a planned pandemic.”
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The idea that the pandemic is ‘planned’ is a hat of tin foil and Johnson has already received heavy criticism from it Mile High Sports for spreading “disinformation” with its platform as a player. However, if you look past the controversy of reading between the lines of what the great linebacker was saying, it doesn’t sound like Johnson is afraid of the virus and questioning the motives behind what is happening.
Maybe it was some kind of Freudian slip, but that’s his privilege as an individual. Many of his teammates clearly feel different. However, some wonder what factor played the bigger role in the Broncos players skipping OTAs: virus safety or not having to report for a voluntary program for a month that allows boys to extend their vacations.
The NFLPA has long sought to reduce the NFL’s off-season training program and has done so with great success. OTAs used to be an extension of a training camp with contact, tackling and hitting. Now, after the NFLPA’s long-fought negotiations with the owners over the course of multiple collective bargaining agreements, OTAs are nothing more than organized flag football.
The new OTAs are better for long-term player health, although they may not be the best for overall team cohesion. OTAs still represent tremendous value to NFL teams, including the players. That’s especially true of any extraordinarily young team, and the Broncos certainly are.
It sounds like Johnson would prefer to report on April 19, but based on what he said on Twitter, he’s more likely to stay aligned with the groupthink embraced by NFLPA player representative Brandon McManus, who is taking his marching orders from the union chairman. JC Tretter. .
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