The new collective bargaining agreement signed last year hit high-level rookies in the pocketbooks when the NFL instituted a rookie pay scale.

According to former New York Giants center Shaun O’Hara, rookies also will be hindered by the lack of practice time, after the CBA banned full practice two-a-days.

“I think when you look at these rookies, now with the new CBA, you don’t have as many reps, because you are only having one practice and a walk-through/jog-through,” O’Hara said Tuesday on NFL Network’s “NFL Total Access.” “So as a rookie, you have to get mental reps in where normally you have a two-a-day.”

O’Hara said adjusting to the speed of the game is the biggest hurdle for rookies and worried that the lack of reps could put some rookies who are expected to play big roles in the 2012 season behind in their development.

Willie McGinest echoed those concerns, saying rookies will have to absorb information quickly.

“You have to learn it, you have to install it,” McGinest said. “In those meetings that night, they install the information, in the morning you are on the field doing it full speed.

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