At the beginning of May, just a few days after the N.F.L. draft, the N.F.L. Players Association hosted a conference call for hundreds of rookies and their agents. The call was ostensibly to welcome the players to the league and explain their benefits as union members. But during the discussion, J.C. Tretter, the union’s president, also repeated a pitch that he has made to veterans for months: Most off-season workouts are voluntary, and no player should feel obliged to attend them.
Harold Lewis, one of the agents on the call, pushed back. Telling rookies to avoid off-season workouts was “complete insanity,” he said in a phone interview, because they are critical opportunities to impress coaches.