Falcons minicamp and organized team activities schedule

With rookie minicamp firmly in the rearview mirror, we’re left to twiddle our thumbs for a couple of weeks until the next part of the offseason schedule comes to pass. Fortunately, early June will bring something worth talking about with organized team activities, and training camp will follow in late July. We won’t actually know the training camp dates until the team announces them in early June, however.

Here’s a look at the schedule ahead. We’re actually not that far from training camp, if you can believe it.

Organized team activities

When: May 30, June 1-2, June 5-6, June 8-9

What: Jeanna Thomas summed this up perfectly in 2015:

Organized team activities, commonly abbreviated as OTAs, are exactly what they sound like--an organized training program to help prepare the team for the coming season. The parameters for these practices are defined very specifically in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and teams are required to film all practices during this timeframe and will face stiff penalties if they violate the rules.

These are not padded practices and no contact beyond what would be considered incidental is permitted. The amount of time players can be required to be at the facility and the amount of time the team is permitted to work on the practice field each day is carefully regulated per the current CBA.

There are three phases to OTAs. The Falcons began the first phase today, which will last for two weeks and emphasizes strength and conditioning. Only strength and conditioning coaches are permitted on the field during this phase, and players can spend 90 minutes maximum on the field.

Mandatory minicamp

When: June 13-15

What: A minicamp with classroom training, fired up Dan Quinn speeches, and on-field practices. Every player on the roster is required to report for this, and you can bet the bottom of the roster will look a little different by this point than it does right now. We should know the training camp dates by now.

There’s something to look forward for to, anyways. Now let’s just fast forward a couple of weeks.