I have to admit that I am on the other side of this thread.
My son decided to play football this year and there are only 27 kids on the team. The kids are 8-10 and have never played a down.
The coach tells the parents that the amount of play time will depend on how many practices they make and how hard they work. However from the second day of practice he picks his 10 favorite players and has them not only playing both sides of the ball but also special teams. This is a 105lb team and the talent level from top to bottom is not that different.
I am all for playing your best players but the chosen ones get all the work even in practice. While the other 15 or so kids do nothing. If he had set 11 on offense and 11 on defense all of the kids would have the same play time and would learn a position much better. A lot of the fringe kids, my son included are actually better than some of the starters but don't get noticed because the coach is focused on his a players.
Last night they ended practice with a sumo wrestling contest and my son threw 5 kids straight out of the ring and it was the first time in 4 weeks that anyone noticed he can hit.