When the NFL and the players association agreed to the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, one of the changes they agreed to was a reduced schedule of practices during the offseason. The players were largely dominated in the CBA negotiations but one of the concessions they did get from the owners was an agreement to include five fewer weeks of organized offseason practices, limits to the on-field practice time allowed, limits to the number of full-contact practices allowed, the elimination of two-a-day padded practices, and an increase in the number of days off players received. 

Teams that don't follow these rules end up getting disciplined by the league, often with a reduction of even the reduced number of practices they are allowed during the offseason. The Baltimore Ravens have been one of the most frequent violators of these rules. 

Earlier this offseason, the Ravens were docked two OTA sessions and received a fine for violating the league's OTA rules. (According to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, owner Steve Bisciotti was fined $100,000 while coach John Harbaugh got stuck with a $50,000 fine.) That was not the first time they'd been punished for violating the policy.  In 2016, they were fined and docked three OTAs after they briefly conducted a non-contact punt protection drill with pads. In 2010, they missed a week of workouts due to an infraction. 

Now, Ravens coach John Harbaugh has decided this is the right time to voice his opinion that teams do not get enough practice time to "ramp up" to training camp. 

"Acclimation is very important," Harbaugh said, per ESPN.com. "If we could get a week instead of two days -- not to push it back so we have a shorter time to get our guys ready for football -- to put in front of training camp where we can get our guys ramped up for the collisions and hard movements, maybe we would avoid some of those first two- to three-day injuries that we get during training camp. That's our goal this year."

It's nice that Harbaugh wants to avoid injuries for his players and that he wants to get his guys ready to play earlier, but it sure seems like not playing as much football is a better way to reduce injuries suffered while playing football, than is playing, well, more football.