Joe Bugel is beginning his 31st year of coaching in the NFL, his 14th with the Washington Redskins. Bugel has seen just about everything there is to see as a coach. He has won Super Bowls with Joe Gibbs and the Redskins. He was head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and the Oakland Raiders. Bugel has a few stories to tell.

On Tuesday, he sat and talked with a small group of reporters. He was asked about the 80-man roster limits, and the impact it has on practice. In recent seasons, teams received roster exemptions for the NFL Europe players they had on their roster. Some teams would carry six or seven such players simply to have more bodies to get through training camp.

“We were running three teams of offensive linemen,“ Bugel said. “Now we’ve got 14 guys.“

And that got Bugel to thinking.

“We’re not used to having just 80 guys. In the old days, we’d take 150 guys to camp. We had a scout teams for scout teams.“

Bugel said he hoped to have nine or 10 offensive linemen after the final cut, with the 10th probably residing on the practice squad.

“We still have that at least,“ Bugel said.

And that got him to thinking again.

“It’s not like the old days, when we had about 25,“ Bugel said. “We had our own rules in those days. People said we cheated, but everybody had back injuries, you know what I mean. We had a ball. Those were the days. We never ran out of linemen.“

The Redskins in the 1980s were known for keeping a large number of players on the injured reserve list. In those days, players on IR could practice, once they had recovered from their injuries.

Now any player placed on injured reserve is done for the season. He is not allowed to practice or even to watch practice. The Redskins and the San Francisco 49ers, two teams that never hesitated to spend money to develop players if they thought it would help them in the future, probably had quite a bit to do with the implementation of that rule.

Bugel was asked for his thoughts on Darrell Green and Art Monk, who will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 2. Bugel heartily endorsed them as players and as people. Bugel said Green, a cornerback,  could get on receivers, “like Velcro.“ He also said that those Redskins teams of the 1980s should have other players considered for the Hall of Fame, notably offensive linemen Russ Grimm, Joe Jacoby and Jim Lachey.

“That team went to four Super Bowls,“ Bugel said of the Grimm, Jacoby, Lachey squads. “Somebody had to be doing a good job.“

One of the writers jokingly said, “They were just well coached.“
Bugel said, “Thank you babe.“ Everybody laughed.

Then Bugel laughed and jokingly said, “Put that in the paper. We don’t want to have that just as talk. I’ve got children that like to read that paper.“