I read the articles about Andy Reid's training camps being hard and I laugh. They only last two and half weeks. Training camp was a month and half to two months when I broke into the NFL.
Two-a-days in pads were the norm. Now it's illegal to have two-a-day practices in pads. Rarely did you practice without pads or without full-go hitting.
When you finished training camp your body was tired and fatigued. It took a while before you recovered. As you got older, you might not recover until the end of the season.
Now with the salary cap structure, valuable players can get out of any drill or practice by simply telling the trainer that their hamstring feels tight or something else hurts.
A rookie would stand up in the cafeteria and sing their fight song. At times they would put on a comedy show by getting a chance to mimmick the coaches and the veterans. This was positive and helped to bond the team.
There were other things that were very negative and at times hurt the team.
Sometimes veteran players who were at risk of losing their jobs to rookies would focus on that rookie and haze them as a way to protect their job. They would even steal a rookies playbook or harrass them in meeting, so that they would have more trouble grasping their assignments.
Rookies were sent out on assignments after curfew (with the risk of being fined) in order to get things for veterans. I saw a lot of abuses and I've heard stories about things being even worse.
Teams with strong positive leadership by the players would step in and protect rookies but some teams without that leadership would let it get out of control.
