Players being deprived of in-person Spring workouts is not entirely novel. In fact, it’s not even ancient history. There are several players on the current roster who have gone through that, most notably Cameron Heyward during his rookie season, in 2011. From a football perspective, he had it worse, because there weren’t even virtual meetings. The players were locked out.
“I felt like I was running with my head cut off”, Heyward told Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazete about his rookie year. “I couldn’t get information from my strength coach. I couldn’t pick the brain of my defensive line coach.