Pats lose 2 days of OTAs for violation of league policy
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
Presumably holding impermissible team workouts, or violating restrictions against live contact. From what I recall, the NFL docks teams OTAs specifically for violations relating to the conduct of team activities. Ie, you don’t lose an OTA for, say, tampering.
Twitter replies are hilarious. More than half are of the “if we’re cheating again WE’RE BACK” variety.
Perhaps BB submitted his yearly letter asking to see the results of the NFLs inflated ball study?
According to Alex Barth, their canceling of tomorrow's OTA and subsequent media availability, they failed to comply with league rules that state the team must open OTAs to the media once in every 3 practices. With no media availability 5/22 and 5/23, tomorrow's was the last opportunity to hit that benchmark.
I'm not sure why the Pats would cancel any opportunity to practice considering last years shit show.
Bill is playing chess. Rest of the dumb teams are tiring out their players.
I can’t find another source that gives any information as to the alleged violation. If they had opened up to the media either of the other days, canceling practice tomorrow would have been a nothingburger.
It's a figment of my imagination.. but it feels like something that BB would do just to rub it in that he knows it wasn't a real thing.
Getting docked two days of OTAs because they didn't open one of three up to the media seems really stupid, I hope that isn't the case.
The NFLs practice rules are really some of the dumbest things out there. I get that they may have some kind of internal rationality, but they really are overwrought and kind of insane. All of this goes away with guaranteed contracts right?
There is not reason to think that is the case. Haven't seen the actual reasoning yet but it's usually that there was too much contact or otherwise too rigorous a practice at an OTA
What? Wasn’t yesterday’s OTA cancelled because of whatever violation occurred? And how could the violation be a failure to open up one of the first three OTAs to the media if they hadn’t held the third OTA yet….which was cancelled due to an alleged violation.
I think folks are confused here.
View: https://twitter.com/realalexbarth/status/1661550682393001984?s=46&t=1S4eWjX_rzBBrpPNddRPAg
This is speculation, sourced from the most recent Patriots Beat Podcast. Starts at 1:50 or so.
Edit: this conflicting(?) information could be a matter of timing where his article came out after the pod, perhaps with some additional information. Absent something explicit, it's a bit puzzling.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFK7XWma0Ss&t=1605s
It seems pretty obvious that this is not punishment for canceling todays OTA. They were docked 2 sessions and only one of them is next week. Todays session is part of the punishment, not the reason for it.
So, can they run Disorganized Team Activities instead?
"Wow, those are some really big kids playing football on the playground today, and they are really fast."
"Wow, those are some really big kids playing football on the playground today, and they are really fast."
I listened for about 5 minutes and felt dumber after. I don't think there was any additional information just some logic. None of that made sense.
He reads the rules of OTAs needing to be open to media every 3 practices. Then almost immediately starts talking about how by canceling OTAs the Patriots were in violation for not having media availability every 3 days. This whole theory is based on his wild assumption that Belichick cancelled two OTAs to avoid the media and then taking sopme giant non-sensical leaps.
Speculation:
- 1 OTA gone for premature contact with coaches (viz. O'Brien/Klemm working with offensive players)
- 1 OTA gone for excessive contact during Monday or Tuesday's session (apparently, OTA sessions are taped league-wide and supplied to the PA for review)
As usual, a big nothing burger from the league. The hand wringing here is a bit much
"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."
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/05/25/patriots-forfeited-otas-trace-to-a-meeting-violation/
"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."
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/05/25/patriots-forfeited-otas-trace-to-a-meeting-violation/
I know these are millionaire problems, but is there any other "workplace" in America that operates on this level of silliness? I won't lie, I wish I had a union that swoops in because a boss put a meeting up on a message board that shouldn't be there...
The fact that internally advertising a meeting that is optional to attend in the first place is considered a violation tells us all we need to know. Some rules are so absurd that breaking them should be the norm.
More evidence of Belichick losing his edge because he’s old? You let us know what you think, we are here for four hours on 98.5 The Sports Hub and taking your calls after this long break for hair plug ads, autobody work, and weight loss programs.
Sounds like it was determined to be "mandatory" because it got posted on the team schedule.
So posting it, in the eyes of the NFLPA, made it "mandatory" and thus a violation, and thus it costs NE two OTAs.
Probably some low level intern thought he/she was doing the right thing by adding it to the schedule, and that cost them valuable practice time.
Insane.
Yeah unfortunately there are strict guidelines on optional vs. mandatory at this time of the NFL calendar. A clerical error leading to 2 missed practices instead of a fine is kind of harsh though.
Feel free to flame me for this, but I doubt he's happy about this, and if he's going to get the credit for knowing what seed batch the grass is on Gillette on any given day, he probably should know about something that causes a forfeiture of practices, as inconsequential as it may seem to us. He's had years to dissect every nuance of this nonsense and direct things down the ladder accordingly.
An intern posted something on a board. Sometimes it’s OK to blame the idiotic league interpretation of idiotic league rules.
Edit- switched it out to a more detailed Bedard tweet:
View: https://twitter.com/GregABedard/status/1661791448927272979
The Special Teams meetings repeatedly were longer than they were supposed to be, which meant guys who were also in offense/defense meetings went over their 4 hour per day caps repeatedly. Multiple violations on a CBA item are always going to be punished.
View: https://twitter.com/GregABedard/status/1661791448927272979
The Special Teams meetings repeatedly were longer than they were supposed to be, which meant guys who were also in offense/defense meetings went over their 4 hour per day caps repeatedly. Multiple violations on a CBA item are always going to be punished.
After an offseason of trying to get Judge hired somewhere else, Bill had the intern put this on the calendar, thus giving him reason to fire him outright.
I'm not disputing this and it sounds like a minor but avoidable (and thus stupid) mistake but my god, there's some body in the building--probably someone kind of low level dude- who hates hates hates Joe Judge and likes leaking stuff to fellow Judge hater Bedard.
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View: https://twitter.com/zackcoxnesn/status/1661798857703866368?s=46&t=WQi6iqIXzyd2nQDr6B-03Q
The issue, other than Joe Judge, was the meeting was scheduled BEFORE the 4 hours of voluntary meetings.
The issue, other than Joe Judge, was the meeting was scheduled BEFORE the 4 hours of voluntary meetings.
No, but league documents Bedard got ahold of said Patriots ST coach Joe Judge.
Tom Curran on EEI said that they got caught red-handed by an NFL official who was in the building for the latest practice and backtracked the overtime meetings to the previous 2 OTA days.
Jeff Howe wrote that an NFLPA rep was in the building, noticed the meeting posted on the schedule and told the team that could give off the impression that the meeting was mandatory. The team then self reported the violation to the NFL.
You mean Patriots' NFLPA player reps Joe Cardona and Cody Davis, two special teams players?
Maybe that he was so good as a special teams coach that it got him directly promoted to a head coaching position and now he's back working with special teams which he's proven to be really good at. Just a guess though