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In order to win in the NFL, you still need a quarterback and a solid defense. But this season you’ll also have to tackle the same problem facing every office in the world: a solid time-management plan.
This is the problem the Buffalo Bills faced when a new coaching staff, led by Rex Ryan, came to town this year. Because of recent regulations, practice time has never been more precious. And according to coaches, the attention spans of their players—most of whom are millennials—have never been shorter. The old methods simply don’t work anymore.
How NFL Teams Practice When They Aren’t Allowed to Practice
“I remember coaching under my dad—oh my god,” said Ryan, who worked under his father Buddy Ryan in the 1990s. “We had two, three hour practices every day, back-to-back padded practices. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
That’s no longer the case. Teams are limited to one practice a day instead of infamous and grueling two-a-days. Once the season starts, teams are limited to 14 practices in which players wear pads. Yet despite decades of technological and schematic advancement, NFL practices are still generally the same as they were years ago. Players take turns running plays. It is no frills.
With these two factors in plain sight, Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman identified a problem with NFL practices: “In my experience, there’s a lot of standing around.”
So Roman devised a plan to change the way Buffalo practices. The first part is to effectively split practice into two practices on separate parts of the field, so that everyone is running a play at all times—and there’s no more standing around.
“In this business, for some reason, smart and efficient are bad words,” said Bills general manager Doug Whaley.
Instead of backups watching starters run plays—or starters getting a breather while watching the backups—everyone on the Bills is operating in their own ecosystem. This, Roman said, is crucial, because he thinks younger players need to be more engaged at all times. “Attention spans are shorter than they used to be,” he said.
Whaley said this is crucial for roster development. Because third-string players or undrafted rookies typically get the least amount of reps, he said, it is hard to get a read on who is standing out. According to Whaley, an undrafted free agent who would get 10 plays each practice under a normal schedule, is now getting 20-25 useful plays each practice.
“Last year, it was just ‘ones [starters], go go go, twos go...’ now everyone gets an equal amount of reps,” said wide receiver Robert Woods. As Ryan puts it: “We’ve added plays without adding time. Ten years ago we looked at practice and said ‘oh, we’ll catch up on that later.’ You can’t do that anymore.”
Roman and Ryan’s time-saving methods are not limited to running concurrent practices. They have also found another simple way to ensure their fast-moving practices move even faster: They don’t correct mistakes on the field. They simply want to run as many plays in practice as possible, then they will address any mistakes to players in the film room later.
“We are not going to call a timeout and stop the practice on the field to tell a receiver he needs to take a two-yard split inside the numbers,” Roman said. “The quickest way to get better at football is to play football. Not watch football and not talk about football. It gives players the opportunities to make mistakes.”
Woods, the Bills’ receiver, said the no-mistake-correction philosophy has an added benefit for players because it allows a player to practice “stress-free” without walking on eggshells, afraid of offending their coach with a wrong route. That will come after practice.
“There is no confrontation between the coaches and players out here in practice,” tight end Chris Gragg said of the no-corrections policy. “They want you to play fast...there’s more detail per play [on film] than I’ve been around.”
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Roman sounds like he's not as dumb as some of our recent coaches.
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