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Green Bay is one of 16 teams to have multiple weeks of these joint practices.
A few years ago, the NFL shifted to a 17-game regular season schedule. With this change came a reduction in the preseason from four games to three. NFL teams have always looked for creative ways to get more meaningful reps to inform their final roster cuts at the end of the preseason, but the loss of one game ratcheted those efforts up considerably.
One way that several NFL teams have elected to get additional competitive drills is by participating in joint practices. This, well, practice is one that the Green Bay Packers in particular have embraced under head coach Matt LaFleur, who has scheduled at least one week of joint practice in every season but one since he was hired on. Notably, the only omission is in 2020, when the preseason was canceled in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In keeping with a growing trend around the NFL, the Packers are doubling up this summer for the second straight season. After practicing against the Broncos (in Denver) and the Baltimore Ravens (in Green Bay) during their 2024 training camp, the Packers will travel to face the Indianapolis Colts before hosting the Seattle Seahawks in weeks two and three of the preseason, respectively.
Indeed, the Packers are hardly the only NFL team that is embracing this approach. A whopping 16 NFL teams — fully half of the teams in the league — will participate in multiple weeks of joint practices this summer. That number comes from a list published by the NFL and reported by NFL Network reporter Tom Pelissero:
Of those 18 teams, however, there is exactly one that will practice jointly with preseason opponents before all three preseason games. That team is the Miami Dolphins, who will travel to Chicago and Detroit before hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Pelissero’s list technically lists 24 sets of joint practices, including two entries listing the New York Jets and New York Giants. However, those two teams will simply trade off consecutive days of practice in a single week between their nearby facilities, rather than having two separate weeks of joint practices.
Most of the teams practicing jointly over two different weeks are choosing to hold one session at home and one on the road, as the Packers are scheduled to do. Only the Browns, Rams, and Titans are away from home for all of their joint practices, while the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions are the only teams to host both sets of sessions.
The Rams have a particularly unusual setup as well. Sean McVay’s team will have two sets of joint practices at other teams’ training camp sites before the Rams serve as the home team for the following exhibition games. In the first week of the preseason, they host the Dallas Cowboys, but the two teams will practice at Dallas’ camp facility in Oxnard, CA instead of at the Rams’ main site in Inglewood. Additionally,...
