The season is a performance problem before it is an injury problem.

Four qualities decay on a schedule. Power goes first, inside two weeks, because practice never asks for real intent. Max strength follows by four, because nothing on the calendar loads them anymore. Top speed never gets touched at all, since practice lives at 85 percent and the top gear only exists if something demands it. And eccentric strength, the ability to stop, land and change direction, declines while the demand for it climbs every single week.

Nothing on their schedule is defending any of it. That is what this builds. Twenty minutes, shaped around how close the next game is, protecting the four qualities the season spends and the tissue their sport wears down.