A couple of different football players, one active and one retired, are looking at the way teams schedule their OTAs and wondering if there isn’t good reason to change the current system.

Writing for SI.com (via FanHouse), Ross Tucker thinks that the six weeks or so of dead time between the end of workouts and the start of training camps gives players too much time to find themselves in compromising situations. His argument doesn’t hold much water, though. He points to the recent arrests of Jevon Kearse and Cedric Benson but each man plays for teams that had OTAs scheduled after the time they chose to drink and drive. He also applauds the Houston Texans for holding practices through July 4th but the Texans actually held their final workouts a couple of weeks ago.

Given the history of players getting in trouble in season, during training camp and out of training camp, it seems a bit naive to think that such a change might actually help keep our arrest meter at 00. If the problem is time off, as Tucker suggests, the problem would just move from June to February and March. It would have been interesting to hear a former player like Tucker discuss why so many players respond to time off by getting arrested.

Chris Cooley of the Redskins is also thinking about this topic and recommending a switch. He comes at it from a completely different angle, however. He thinks it doesn’t make much sense for teams to send players away to go on vacation or what have you just before they need to be in prime physical condition. From his blog:

“It’s like, bust your ass to get in shape, now take a month off. I mean, if you’re not working every day, a month is more than enough time to lose considerable strength and endurance. Mentally I will be right where I left off for the summer, but it’s unbelievable how quickly my body will forget what it had to go through to be ready for the field. ”

If there’s a reason to push the start of the offseason schedule back, this would be it. Essentially, it would be an extended training camp which would seem to benefit everyone a little bit more than the current system.