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Players for the Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers have all said to hell with NFL voluntary offseason workouts, which are scheduled to begin on April 19. The Broncos and Seahawks were the first two teams to announce their decision to skip out on offseason workouts while the Bucs followed suit on Tuesday.
Tampa Bay released a statement with the NFL Players Association explaining that “in light of the ongoing pandemic, we are choosing to take a stand with other players across the league and exercise our right to not participate in the voluntary offseason program.”
A statement from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers players. pic.twitter.com/SOa24L779P
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) April 13, 2021
With three teams jumping ship on voluntary offseason programs, it’s safe to say many other teams around the league will join them. The NFLPA is encouraging all players around the league to not attend any offseason workouts.
As noted in the Bucs’ statement with the NFLPA, players took part in a fully virtual offseason last year and didn’t seem to miss a beat. Players around the league got the taste of virtual workouts and simply took personal accountability to work on their craft on their own time, so it’s not a shock to see players want to do that same thing this spring, especially with the virus still looming.
Another piece to the puzzle here is that the NFL added another regular-season game to the schedule this year, of course players are going to hold out as long as they can until camp truly starts and save their bodies as long as they can.
When it comes to a fan standpoint, only the uber NFL diehards pay attention to voluntary workout season. While plenty out there are craving football season right now, the bright side is we don’t have to hear about completely meaningless updates revolved around professional athletes voluntary working out and practicing.