Inside the talks on how the season might look,
NFL offensive linemen players prepare for a season of uncertainty
FRISCO, Texas — As Terron Armstead tells it, no place is a bad place for an offensive lineman to repeatedly practice his stance.
“It’s something you can do in Walmart, in the cereal aisle,” the All-pro Saints left tackle told a gathering of 47 NFL and collegiate offensive linemen Friday. “Over and over. Repetition.”
Armstead’s message was one of many drilled with repetition as veterans including Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson and Buccaneers center Ryan Jensen gathered to exchange tips and advise younger linemen on how to maximize every advantage during an offseason in which the coronavirus pandemic has limited them.
But Armstead also imparted another key lesson to young guards, centers and tackles ranging from Texas and Oklahoma collegiate players to 2020 rookies such as the Jets’ Mekhi Bechton and Cardinals’ Josh Jones.
“Problem-solving,” Armstead said. “Things are going to come up you haven’t seen. They’ve got a game of the week, a blitz of the week that you guys have got to problem-solve throughout the game.”
That mantra — that no amount of preparation will account for all variables — extended far beyond the technique, recovery and film review strategies shared across two days at the Omni Hotel adjacent to Cowboys headquarters at the Star in Frisco.
Johnson, his marketing agent Brian Bradtke and personal offensive line coach Duke Manyweather spent preceding days thwarting their own set of logistical blitzes in their pursuit to salvage an in-person summit. They required temperature screenings and symptom questionnaires from attendees upon arrival. Bottles of hand sanitizer and Clorox containers canvassed the spacious ballroom. Masks were available at check-in, though most players didn’t consistently wear them. A doctor in a hazmat suit administered free COVID-19 tests to dozens of participants who opted to utilize the service.
Linemen envisioned the gathering, in many ways, as foreshadowing the 2020 football season that tentatively lies ahead of them: health precautions and a nonzero level of risk are realities players can’t divorce from the contact-heavy sport that encompasses their livelihood. The risk-reward calculus of football in a pandemic is complex.
“It’s like, well, if I stay at home and do nothing, then I get called tomorrow, my ass is getting cut,” Manyweather told USA TODAY Sports on Friday from his third annual OL Masterminds Summit. “At the end of the day, what these guys understand is that the NFL is about performance and results.
“The longer they’re not playing, they’re not going to make money.”
And there’s “a relationship between the mental processing and play speed,” Manyweather teaches the players who train with him. Understanding precisely where a player’s eyes, feet, hips and center of gravity must focus makes a difference. At the summit, players across NFC and AFC teams compared strategies.
Every presnap advantage is key to withstand a “scary athlete” like Saints defensive end Cam Jordan, Jensen said, explaining that he eschews cutups for chronological game film to best spot differences in a defender’s game between the snaps when he’s dominating and ones he’s beat handily. Jets offensive tackle George Fant shared how he maximized aggressive use of his hands when protecting mobile Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson during his previous tenure with the Seahawks. Players compared varying techniques to combat defenders’ strengths, from a tendency to cheat a couple steps when facing Pro Bowl interior defenders including Aaron Donald and Gerald Mccoy to realizing that the antidote to Nick Bosa’s smooth hands differs from the ideal way to counter Everson Griffen’s power or Yannick Ngakoue’s false chops and subtle thrashes. Players deem these behind-the-scenes tips worth setting aside their team loyalties.
“Every time I leave this place I end up becoming a better player or at least more knowledgeable,” Johnson said. “The O-line is a brotherhood.
“We call it the mushroom society because we take a lot of [expletive] and we’re put in the dark.”
Mere weeks away from training camp, players feel similarly in the dark regarding NFL protocols that will minimize spread of infections. Players expressed concerns over potential COVID-19 testing delays and protocols not yet settled between the NFL and NFL Players Association. None of the three players who spoke to USA TODAY Sports planned to skip the season regardless of protocol. But the unusual circumstances are on their mind.
“The excitement I have for the season has kind of been stifled a bit just because everything going on,” Cowboys offensive tackle Cam Erving told USA TODAY Sports. “You can’t really get excited because you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s just different in that sense.”
The risk, too, is potentially more acute for linemen than many of their skill-position teammates. Many linemen’s height-weight coordinates yield body mass indexes within the CDC’S definition of obese—and thus, by CDC standards, at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Players at the summit Friday said they’re reassured that their healthy respiratory systems and elite fitness will reduce their vulnerability. Even BMI estimates may get tricky, Manyweather said, when “there are some guys here with sub-20% body fat.”
Infecting family members is some players’ more pressing concern.
“Is it fair to ask another human to go potentially risk their life for your entertainment?” Jensen told USA TODAY Sports. “If I have it, and I go home, yeah I got tested—but I’m not going to know for 24 hours and I’m going to go home and kiss my kids.”