Bart Scott: No 2-a-days makes NFL soft

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New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott was not happy when told that the league may eliminate two-a-day practices in training camp as part of a new collective bargaining agreement, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

"I think it's wimping out, making football more soft," Scott said, according to the newspaper. "No reason to try and make camp easy.

"I get concerned you're making football players weaker because you don't push them past that threshold. ... I get concerned with the same thing with the quarterback stuff, that they turn it into flag football; they turn it into little pansy stuff."

Scott sang a little different tune during informal workouts during the lockout.

After a workout at Rutgers on Wednesday, Jets linebacker Jamaal Westerman said that Scott had been one of the most conservative players when it came to contact during the Jets workouts in New Jersey a few weeks ago.

"I was talking to Bart and he was like, 'Make sure you don't hit anybody,'" Westerman said. "Cause like anything else, no one is under contract so you don't want to get anybody hurt. There's no pads, no equipment. Of course you get your reads, of course you try to get the movement down, but at the end you always pull up and let the offense make the catch."

It's not just the hitting that Scott says will be missing if two-a-days are eliminated.

"You're stealing reps from coaches," Scott said, according to the Star-Ledger. "Even if you put those reps into the front of practice, what's the quality going to be? Eventually that cuts down on the quality of the product, (when) we're already behind. Now you're trying to go full-speed running, when you're absolutely dog tired, and that's when you get pulls and stuff like that."

Scott said he might do extra work on his own if he feels that practices without two-a-days aren't giving him what he needs.

"Two-a-days, it's what football is all about," he said, according to the newspaper. "It's about endurance, pain, will, putting yourself through something when your body is telling you it doesn't want to go. Your mind controlling your body. That's what camp is all about. With one-a-days, guys might not be in as good of shape as they would have been. Camp tears you down, and then a smart coach starts pulling back in enough time that allows players' bodies to build back up."

Information from ESPNNewYork.com's Jane McManus was used in this report.

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