With the new CBA, padded practices are firmly on the endangered species list.
Preseason for vets cannot start any earlier than 15 days before the first preseason game. Padded practices are banned for the first three days and limited to one 3-hour session a day for the remainder of the preseason.
During the regular season, teams can only hold a total of 14 padded practices, 11 of which must be during the first 11 weeks. Only once can a team hold 2 padded practices in 1 week.
Teams that make the playoffs are granted an extra padded practice a week (until they are knocked out).
Certain drills have been outlawed completely, along with the much publicized 2-a-days.
Source is a "sales pamphlet" (certainly reads like one) by the NFLPA for the players (to convince them to vote for the deal -- the vote takes place once the players have agreed to form a union again). Most of the information is also available from mainstream outlets like FOX
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/nfl-players-owners-new-collective-bargaining-agreement-question-and-answer-072511and The Denver Post:
http://blogs.denverpost.com/broncos/2011/07/25/player-safety-nuggets-in-new-cba/7978/There are minor inconsistencies between the sales brochure and FOX, like the NFLPA material saying 5 consecutive days off for all players during the bye week, where FOX says 4.
According to the Denver Post article, the new limitations will force a major change for the Broncos (if the HC change wouldn't have anyway). Apparently, they had 2 padded practices a week the entire regular season. So presumably around 34 padded practices cut down to 14.
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