ASHBURN, Va. (AP) -- Patrick Ramsey can now go home for supper with his wife every night. Chris Samuels no longer has bed check. Ray Brown can drive his own car to practice, rather than find a seat somewhere on a bus.
The Washington Redskins are already done with training camp after three weeks and only 15 full practices, the team's shortest and least physically demanding camp in decades -- if not ever.
"It was a short camp," Samuels said. "I'm glad he did it. Sleep in my own bed for a change."
Coach Joe Gibbs had players report on the latest possible date, July 31, and put his charges through just three of the dreaded two-a-days -- two practices on the same day. By comparison, coach Norv Turner's camp 10 years ago had three two-a-days in the first week alone.
"It's not like it was when I came into the league," said the 42-year-old Brown, who just completed his 20th training camps. "You had a month-and-a-half of training camp. You had 120 guys in camp as opposed to 80, 90. Nobody could imagine any camp lasting three weeks. Now they realize the changes and the differences in the business."
Gibbs had two reasons for starting camp late.
First, he offered it as a reward to his players if they worked hard during the offseason conditioning program in the spring. Secondly, he wanted to cut down on the wear and tear the players feel in their bodies in December, when injuries can really take their toll.
Was camp too short?
Did they get in enough work?
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When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on....
Lets hope this is Gibbs way of saying he wants guys to have fresh legs going into the season so that we can make a late season run.
Or, it could be that we haven't yet had any significant injuries and Gibbs doesn't want to jinx anything. I do think times are different than when Gibbs first coached. Guys are football players year round now so there isn't as much need to improve conditioning.
I do worry that we haven't had enough reps yet to develop cohesion, but its not a though we aren't going to practice anymore. We just won't have two-a-days and team bus trips.
"Normally, we would have broken camp in the middle of this week coming up," Gibbs said. "That's what we did last year. But I figured with the weekend and everything, I was just going to go ahead and end bed check. It doesn't mean we're going to end camp, we're ending bed check."
