Organized team activities are an exciting time on the NFL calendar. It’s really the first NFL football since the Super Bowl, and it gives at least some substance for offseason prognostications and takes. The brief videos that come out of OTAs are fun. They show NFL players playing football, even in the most controlled practice setting. Reporters post the clips to give fans something to see from practice. It’s great.
All of that said, we as a collective football observing culture must cease to live and die on these clips. It’s getting out of hand. And it isn’t just in the 49ers’ corner of the internet.
Across the NFL mediascape there are clips from OTAs that go viral and then spark conversations that try to draw sweeping conclusions about a player or players based on a brief practice video.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan actively aims to forget what he saw in OTAs so it doesn’t color his view of a player once the pads come on in training camp and the preseason.
It’s not that reacting to or watching a video is bad. In fact, generating conversation about football in May and June is good and fun. It’s why we are all fans.
But the conversations on practice clips has gone entirely off the deep end. For example, in the 49ers’ internet community there are some trying to solve QB dilemma based on a clip here and a clip there of either Trey Lance or Sam Darnold doing something either good or bad. That is wild! The 49ers aren’t even going to base their future decisions under center on OTAs, so why are we trying to do so?
We’re missing so much context with video from OTAs. Perhaps a player is working on something that they’re not successful at right away. Maybe a drill was executed wrong. There are a million things (good or bad) that could go into why a practice rep succeeded or failed that have nothing to do with that player’s overall performance.
Again, this doesn’t just go for the 49ers and their fans. It happens all over the internet. Remember when Baker Mayfield completed a throw to Odell Beckham Jr. in OTAs one time and the clip went viral and the Browns were going to win the Super Bowl? Spoiler: they did not win the Super Bowl and the Mayfield-Beckham connection fizzled out spectacularly.
OTAs mean football is back. That is a good thing. And OTA videos are enough to scratch the itch for NFL football that’s lingered since the clock hit 0:00 on the Super Bowl. They’re fun bits of info, but they also don’t mean much. Excitement is good and fun, but a team has never solved all of its problems with some OTA reps. Arguing on the internet is becoming a pervasive part of the human existence, but let’s save the harsh judgements and sweeping declarations for camp and the preseason when the information gleaned is actually worth dissecting.