'Obviously there’s value to a playbook, and of course every professional athlete should take his job seriously enough to be as prepared as possible—but in reality, trying to learn a system by studying a playbook on your own is both terribly limiting and equally as inefficient. You may be surprised to know that a large majority of NFL athletes rarely spend their solo time reading the playbook."
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“Then I wake up and I’m doing it all over again. Even when we’re off, I’m doing the same thing. It’s the same thing now. I’m trying to learn as much as I can and get the full understanding of the entire defense so I can play multiple roles and do whatever they ask me.”
Kennard’s hard work didn’t go unnoticed. With the team unable to wear pads in spring workouts, it was Kennard’s head that had coaches and teammates turning theirs. Quickly it became evident New York got a bit more than they bargained for in the fifth-round pick from USC.
“He was able to retain a lot of that information,” Giants’ defensive coordinator Perry Fewell said. “He was able to go out on the field and execute and earn some of the trust of his fellow teammates and the trust of his coaches.
If you're making millions, you can damn well spend some hours studying.
If you're not making millions, it usually means you're a marginal player, so you need to do whatever it takes to get a little extra edge to either remain football employed or make your way into the millionaire club.
my kneejerk reaction is that many players rely on their physical gifts/hands on learning and ignore book learning. Let's face it, even in the average populace, many people have difficulty with book learning. When you have physical gifts, it's not surprising that many minimize the studying aspect.
Of course, the NFL is littered with the cast off physically gifted people who didn't want to study, do the extra little things. They're either out of the league, or not maximizing their potential.
The result of players lobbying for reduced practice and who don't want to study the playbook is subpar football.
Nowhere did he say study was overrated.
Nowhere did he say study was overrated.
Great point.
I'm sure any teacher, instructor, or trainer here can chime in, but I've always found that there's definitely a systematic process to helping your students/trainees learn and master new skills and concepts. This is where studying your playbook lays the basic foundation to mastering the plays and one's role in those plays. We would wish that each player is given an opportunity to study game films whenever they want, but that is not feasible. So using their time away from the film room and the practice field to continue to understand the layout of the individual plays is a must. But without actually going through the "practical applications and exercises" of those plays, these players will never fully master those plays.
So yes, the concept that the players should be studying their playbook every waking moment is overrated. But not studying it would be to not set the proper foundation to understanding those plays.
The one thing you can be sure of is that QB's read it.
Then you can really learn.
Class being practice.