We’ve often blamed the NFLPA for permitting teams to brazenly violate the rules regarding offseason workouts by doing nothing at all to prevent teams from treating the voluntary sessions as mandatory or to keep teams from allowing contact to occur at what are supposed to be strictly non-contact drills.

But the media also bears plenty of the blame in this regard by not pressuring the teams or the union to better police the activities.

Instead, many members of the media are clueless as to what is and isn’t allowed at these offseason practice sessions, and as a result the media has generally failed to shed any light on what would be a big deal if it related to something like, for example, the stupid procedural rules that apply to the manner in which a City Council meeting is run.

The most recent example?  In discussing Packers defensive tackle Justin Harrell, Rob Reischel of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel explains that “Harrell didn’t take part in any contact drills during Green Bay’s post-draft minicamps and organized team activities last year.”

As the reader who pointed this one out to us observed, none of the players, from any team, should have taken part in any contact drills last offseason.

The reality is that there’s plenty of contact in the offseason.  We haven’t chronicled it as much this season because folks don’t seem to care about it.  But one of the reasons that folks don’t seem to care about it is that the “real” media rarely if ever mentions it.