Easy walkthroughs and limited hitting throughout 17 days is the Club Med of training camp for the Washington Redskins. But does it really matter?
Then-head coach Marty Schottenheimer's first training camp practice in 2001 proved telling. Just before the session's end, Schottenheimer brought fans onto the field to encircle the players. It was bull-in-the-ring time -- a brutal one-on-one tackling drill rarely seen in the NFL.
Schottenheimer's six-week camp included full pad practices twice a day, every day. When defensive end Bruce Smith wanted to attend his former Buffalo coach Marv Levy's Hall of Fame induction on a veterans scheduled off day, Schottenheimer said no.
Conversely, successor Jim Zorn's 2008 training camp included sun screens over players on the sidelines. No one has done that around the NFL before or since.
