The Cowboys are trotting at a leisurely pace this week as Dallas entered phase three of Organized Team Activities. And that\u2019s all by design. No one wants to get tagged for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n
Coming into the late May workouts, the NFLPA and NFL<\/a> had flagged the Cowboys in consecutive years for too much contact during these voluntary drills. The penalties cost coach Mike McCarthy<\/a> $150,000 in personal fines. And the NFL eliminated two of the OTA sessions.<\/p>\n McCarthy even said that he\u2019s not putting the team through 11-on-11 team drills. Nothing is full speed or even at a THUD level.<\/p>\n \u201cOur team periods are basically walk-throughs and jog-throughs,\u201d McCarthy told reporters<\/a>. \u201cSo, we\u00a0won\u2019t have a competitive 11-on-11\u00a0drill here probably ever again in the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n Why so extreme? Another OTA mistake could lead to the NFL taking away some draft picks. Practices in spring hardly seem worth that cost. Plus, the $150,000 came directly from McCarthy\u2019s bank account. There weren\u2019t any gofundmes.<\/p>\n A reporter asked McCarthy whether his practice changes related directly to his loss of money. Everyone one laughed,<\/p>\n \u201cI mean I\u2019m glad you find humor in it,\u201d McCarthy joked. \u201cMy wife and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really funny. It\u2019s actually a sore spot with me. I\u2019m on camera (or) I\u2019d tell you exactly how I really feel. Gotta follow the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Cowboys are trying to toe the straight and narrow in regards to OTAs, other teams and coaches are stumbling. The Patriots couldn\u2019t practice Thursday<\/a> after NFLPA reps turned in the team for keeping players too long per day. The NFL fined Bill Belichick $50,000 and docked the team two practices for a phase two transgression. <\/p>\n While violations around the NFL usually involve contact in drills, the Patriots\u2019 issue was about special teams players having mandatory meetings on May 1, 2 and 4th. Those meetings, which were dubbed workshops, caused the players to stay longer than the allowed four hours<\/a>\u00a0at Patriots headquarters. The NFLPA filed a complaint on May 4 and amended it on May 9th. The NFLPA focused on special teams coach Joe Judge<\/a><\/strong>, who conducted the workshops.<\/p>\n According to the NFLPA, the rules for Organized Team Activities are strict<\/a>. The entire league now is in Phase Three of the OTA schedule. Coaches and players can do more and stay longer at the practice facilities. There can be 10 practices during this three-week phase. Players can stay for up to six hours per day. But at no time can there be contact in practices.<\/p>\n Mini camps follow next month, with the Cowboys scheduled for June 13-15.<\/p>\n\n The post Dallas Cowboys, Mike McCarthy adjust OTAs to escape further punishment by NFL<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Cowboys are trotting at a leisurely pace this week as Dallas entered phase three…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}So far Cowboys avoided ire of NFLPA. Patriots not so lucky <\/h2>\n