Will players stay away from offseason workouts…

One of the most quickly forgotten developments from 2021 (at least by me) happened in the offseason, when players for the first time organized widespread boycotts of voluntarily workouts.

Led by influential voices such as Tom Brady, players stayed away from Organized Team Activities in unprecedented numbers, flipping in many respects the presumption that players will always volunteer to show up and participate. So will it happen again in 2022?

There hasn’t been much (any) talk about it yet, but at this point only four teams have started their offseason programs. And the early phases involve mainly strength and conditioning. The question becomes whether players will be there as the sessions become more involved and the practices become more important to laying the foundation for the coming season.

The NFL Players Association launched the effort last year, encouraging players from most teams to stay away. (The union did not attempt to persuade players from teams with extensive workout bonuses to skip the sessions.) And while the pandemic was mentioned at times as a reason for players to work out on their own, the union wanted to send a much more important message to players and to the league regarding the necessity of these practices, and whether the players should happily do something they’re not required to do.

At some level, the union was sending another message. We don’t have to do it, so we’re not doing it. It’s a version of the work-to-rule approach to labor relations, where a unionized workforce does the absolute, bare minimum that is required — to the detriment and chagrin of management. Thus, if the employer wants more, the employer needs to give the workers an inducement to agree to show up when they don’t have to show up.

That sparked various compromises between players and teams, carving down the extent of the on-field sessions and/or the intensity of the practices.

Brady’s role in the no-offseason-workouts fight was curious, given that he always gets his workouts in. Troy Aikman suggested at one point that Brady participated in the effort solely to gain an advantage. He knew that he and his teammates would practice together, and he assumed other quarterbacks wouldn’t have the same level of success.

Let’s see whether Brady pushes for players to work out on their own again this year, or whether — given the coaching change in Tampa Bay — he decides that he and his teammates should be present in order to support Todd Bowles’s transition to the top job.