{"id":121324,"date":"2025-06-11T12:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T12:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/121324\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T12:22:10","slug":"the-voluntary-workouts-debate-what-teams-lose-when-stars-skip-otas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/121324\/","title":{"rendered":"The voluntary workouts debate: What teams lose when stars skip OTAs"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 In the NFL, the word \u201cvoluntary\u201d does a lot of heavy lifting. Officially, Organized Team Activities (OTAs) are optional for players. Contractually, no one can be punished for skipping them. But the reality, as evidenced by recent discussions surrounding the Cleveland Browns<\/a>, is far more nuanced.<\/p>\n

When stars like Myles Garrett and David Njoku choose to skip these sessions, the impact extends far beyond their personal preparation. It affects the entire team ecosystem in ways that aren\u2019t immediately obvious to casual observers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyles has taken it upon himself to be the leader of the entire football team, yet he made the interesting choice of not coming to OTAs,\u201d noted Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot during a recent Orange and Brown Talk podcast<\/a>, highlighting the perceived contradiction between Garrett\u2019s stated leadership goals and his absence from these team-building sessions.<\/p>\n

The issue isn\u2019t necessarily about conditioning or whether these established veterans know the playbook. It\u2019s about the missed opportunities for mentorship, team chemistry, and the subtle teaching moments that happen organically when veterans and rookies share the practice field.<\/p>\n

Cabot provided a concrete example: \u201cWe watched (Garrett) spend some time talking to Dawand Jones. That\u2019s helpful. Dawand Jones is trying to figure out how to play left tackle full time, a new position, and to try to deal with Myles Garrett and try to ask him all of the things that a tackle, a defensive end is going to do to him. That\u2019s useful. That\u2019s helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

These interactions \u2013 a veteran explaining techniques to a younger player, or simply demonstrating the professional standard \u2013 are invaluable yet impossible to replicate when key figures are absent.<\/p>\n

For a team trying to recover from a disastrous 3-14 season, these small moments take on greater significance. The Browns are installing new offensive concepts under new offesnive coordinator Tommy Rees, integrating new players, and trying to rebuild the team culture that seemed to deteriorate last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you\u2019re installing a brand new offense again and we saw how much they struggled last year. They scored 15.2 points per game. They were amongst the league\u2019s worst passing games,\u201d Cabot explained. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to develop chemistry and camaraderie with four different quarterbacks. It\u2019s a quarterback competition. So I would think that mostly everybody would want to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing of these absences is particularly noteworthy. After a season where frustrations boiled over publicly, with Garrett himself being critical of the organization in multiple offseason interviews, his presence at voluntary workouts could have sent a powerful message about commitment to turning things around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a problem with Myles Garrett skipping OTAs,\u201d said Orange and Brown Talk host Dan Labbe. \u201cBut also, man, it would have been something, the message it would have sent after everything that happened this offseason and all those radio row interviews and 3-14, for him to have shown up, I think it would have spoken volumes about kind of how serious he\u2019s taking things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate also extends to tight end David Njoku, whose absence raised concerns given the installation of a new offensive system. \u201cI honestly wish David would have shown up more than Myles,\u201d Labbe admitted. \u201cAnd that\u2019s more of like a, hey, you\u2019re putting in this new offense, you got a young tight end. You\u2019re going to be really important in all of this. It might have been helpful for you to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

These absences create tangible consequences. Missed connections on timing routes, delayed chemistry with quarterbacks, and lost opportunities for younger players to learn from established veterans can all impact early-season performance.<\/p>\n

As Browns reporter Ashley Bastock succinctly put it: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to lead with actions, for me, that means being there when you don\u2019t have to be there necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n

While no one questions the work ethic or commitment of players who skip voluntary sessions, the reality remains: in the competitive landscape of the NFL, every missed opportunity matters. Especially for a team trying to climb out of the cellar.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the podcast for this week:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Listen and subscribe to the Orange and Brown Talk podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Football Insider newsletter free trial: Take a minute and sign up for a free trial<\/a> of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.<\/p>\n

Note: Artificial intelligence was used to help generate this story from the Cleveland Orange and Brown Talk Podcast by cleveland.com. Visitors to cleveland.com have asked for more text stories based on website podcast discussions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 In the NFL, the word \u201cvoluntary\u201d does a lot of heavy lifting. Officially, Organized Team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,85,54,29284,2337,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-121324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-browns","11":"tag-cleveland-browns-veterans-minicamp-2025","12":"tag-clevelandbrowns","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114664711387914698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}