As time passes, the days take on their own cadence for pro football players at training camp. It is an almost numbing rhythm broken only by dates on calendars for games, a Sunday off, an afternoon with no practice.
Twenty-eight days in all, 16 with morning and afternoon practices, will pass from the July 20 start of camp until after the morning practice Aug. 16, when the Bears depart Platteville and move back to Halas Hall in Lake Forest.
It is a time for many players, particularly young ones, when the world inverts, when big events elsewhere matter little and the little things here too small to tell outsiders about mean everything. Presidential campaigns mean little compared to memories of a poor hand placement in a practice play. George W. Bush won’t come up in the night’s meetings, but bad technique will, and it will have far greater immediate impact on the life of a Bear in training camp.
The Bears went to camp with 15 true rookies who had never been through an NFL training camp, nine draft picks and six undrafted free agents. For them the adjustments are the greatest. Rookie offensive tackle Gannon Shepherd calls home twice a week. The Duke lineman lived the last six months with his parents in Georgia, and he likes to let his folks know how he’s doing. It’s not always easy.
“I always say camp is a time warp,” Shepherd says. “You call home and it’s not like you have that much news, just `I practiced twice today.'”
Shepherd is one of the undrafted free agents trying to do what’s seldom possible: make an NFL team. It can happen, though the realistic hope is to stick as one of five players on the developmental “practice squad” and eventually make a roster. Former Bears receiver Tom Waddle did it. So did starting New York Jets tackle Kerry Jenkins, signed off the Bears’ 1997 practice squad late in the season. Guard Todd Burger, like Shepherd a converted defensive lineman, began his career on the Bears’ practice squad, became a starter in Chicago and finished as a Jets starter.
“I think for all the rookies coming in, you’re [just] hoping to make the team, and that was my case,” Shepherd says. “If I ended up on the practice squad, that would be pretty good. But I want to aim for the highest.”
Practice squads are not picked until the day after final cuts, which aren’t made until after the last exhibition game. Shepherd and many of the other 88 players in training camp have other things to worry about first. Like getting through each day.
Shepherd is up every day at 6:50 a.m. That leaves a little time for the short walk to breakfast at Glenview Commons across the street from the players’ dorm. There are mornings when a couple of taps on the snooze alarm seem like a better idea, but it is a fool who does not eat before practice.
“You have to eat,” says center Olin Kreutz, who’s considered smallish for an NFL lineman at 285 pounds. “If I didn’t, I’d probably be down to 260.”
Shepherd, 6 feet 8 inches and 305 pounds, has difficulty keeping weight on. So breakfast is a small career move. The morning practice will be longer than the afternoon’s, and more physical, in full pads, so the body needs fuel.
But Shepherd and most players do not eat the stereotypical football player’s breakfast: a side of beef, the daily milk output of Wisconsin and a week’s egg production from a medium-sized hen house. Shepherd’s breakfast is a couple of pancakes, grits, maybe a few hard-boiled eggs. And absolutely nothing greasy.
“I can’t eat a whole lot before I play,” Shepherd says. “I think a lot of guys are like that.”
During breakfast, Shepherd goes over his notes from the previous night’s meetings, reminders of things to work on and particulars of the upcoming day’s practice. At this point, a tiny touch of nerves may surface, just as they would before a game. Even though this is only practice, it is for his career. In the NFL, they can definitely pull your scholarship.
“I guess it’s pretty similar” to getting mentally ready for a game, Shepherd says. “When you’re going two practices, it’s not as intense as you’d be before a big game. But there is the same type of preparation mentally. You have to go out there with the right mind-set, with all the stuff you need to know and thinking about being aggressive every day.”
Most players are finished with breakfast by 7:30. Then it’s back to the dorm or to the stadium locker room for taping. Younger players, even starters such as Kreutz, get taped at the dorm. Shepherd, because he is bothered by a strained groin, goes to the stadium and its hot tub, then to the taping table.
Players must be on the field by 8:30 for practice, slightly earlier for some positions. Veteran or rookie, the feeling is the same. The morning practice is regarded as the longest, most difficult part of the day.”In the morning you get up and know you’re going to get in pads–it’s your big physical part of the day,” says linebacker Ty Hallock. “It’s like a pregame, which always stinks because you’re waiting for the game. It’s not long from the standpoint of `you’re-bored’ long,’ but because `here we go again.'”
They will practice until about 10:45. The little things that happen in that two-hour session are the ones not easily explained to outsiders.
Shepherd tries not to get too excited about a good practice or down about a bad one, but getting down is inevitable. It is not the five good blocks thrown that dominate thoughts later, but rather the one bad one.
“That’s something everybody told me coming in–not to get too up or down after a practice,” Shepherd says. “But I think most guys at this level are pretty critical of themselves and it’s just such relief when you have a good day. When you have a bad day, you think about it a lot.”
Shepherd was a little less nervous when starting left tackle Blake Brockermeyer was practicing only part time because of tendinitis in his knee. Normally the practice plays are allotted 4-2-1, with starters getting four reps, the second string two and the third string one. With Brockermeyer out, Shepherd had more chances and fewer nerves. With only one rep in seven, “there’s a lot of pressure,” Shepherd says, shaking his head. “You’d better not screw that one up.”
After morning practice, there is weightlifting two days a week for each position group in the area set up under the stadium (the Bears bring most of their weight room with them). Then comes a lunch stop at the cafeteria, which stays open from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to accommodate both stragglers and those players in a hurry to get back to the dorm and nap before afternoon practice at 2:45.
Between lunch and about 1:30 p.m. is what passes for free time in training camp. There is time to sleep, read or whatever players choose. Shepherd, a double major at Duke in economics and environmental science, gets books sent to him by a friend in publishing, and he took up the guitar in the spring with time on his hands after strength and conditioning sessions at Halas Hall.
The cycle repeats with taping ahead of 2:45 practice, then dinner before position meetings at 7:10 p.m. Shepherd’s meetings sometimes begin with a magic trick by offensive line coach Bob Wylie and, like most position meetings, last until about 9:30.
This is a stretch of the NFL day that takes some getting used to; it is simply hard to stay awake sometimes.
“Last year as a rookie I didn’t think I was going to make it sometimes,” recalls defensive lineman Russell Davis, who has moved from end to tackle. “But this year, new position and everything, I’m staying awake because I’m used to it.”
Curfew is at 11 normally, midnight on Wednesdays when there are no evening meetings. Wednesday choices for recreation vary. Shepherd and fellow rookies Brian Urlacher and Brad Williams went into town to see Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in “What Lies Beneath,” a movie Shepherd found scary and a little jarring because he wasn’t used to seeing Ford as a bad guy.
Some players will spend their free night having a drink at one of several Platteville pubs. Others will hone video-game skills in their rooms. Still others will have a few intimate hours with their playbooks. But one eye is always on the clock.
There is time for socializing, but not much. At breakfast maybe. A little at lunch or afterward. A laugh or two coming back from meetings before lights out. But at this point it is a job, as Shepherd and the others understood at a new level Saturday against the Giants. There are no easy days.
“There’s really no bad players out there,” Shepherd says. “It’s not like college where you might see guys you know are never going to play [in the NFL]. But here, even against the third string, you’d better strap it up.”
