This is one thing I just can't wrap my head around. I know it was high school 25+ years ago but our whole team went to the University of Delaware for a week over the summer and had 3 padded practices a day. With crazy conditioning running after each one. I still shudder Everytime I hear green bay cuz that's what we called the worst one. (4) Of each distance 100 yards, then 90, then 80 so on and so forth to 10 yards where we would do as many as the coach felt we needed. Or monkey rolls where the entire team was jogging in a line and the last guy had to sprint to the front. Actually I can still hear a rb I wasn't super close to, behind me saying "c'mon man you can do it, keep it up" when I was starting to flag towards the end. Monsters were bad too, by class seniors first, ran sideline to sideline (50 yards) there, back, there, back so 200 yards total. I LOVED padded practices, hitting people was the best and I would give almost anything to go back to spending 3 days every week in pads after school. I'm sure as professional athletes they don't need the team conditioning the way we did and they do have a higher risk of injury but they've gone too far the other way IMO. I'd be bummed if I was an NFL player.