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‘Rare’ practice habits are paying off
BIRDS BLAST BEARS TO BECOME ONLY TEAM WITH DOUBLE-DIGIT WINS
McCaffery: ‘Rare’ practice habits are paying off for Eagles
The full day of NFL training, from the morning meetings to the drills to the practices, will be over, and there will be the Eagles, soaked in sweat and ripe for fatigue. That’s when it will all begin again.
None of it will be called to order by the head coach. It won’t be on the official, printed agenda. It won’t begin on a whistle or end on a horn. It won’t be measured in time. It will, though, be measured in success. That, the Eagles are proving week after week, beatdown after beat-down, through a winning streak that reached nine Sunday with a 31-3 lesson to the Chicago Bears.
“It is rare,” said Rodney McLeod, a six-year veteran who’d previously played for the Rams. “You see a lot of guys out there after practice working. They are working on different techniques. I see guys working on ‘field goal’ (plays), guys working pass-rush moves.
“I’m working on my breaks. Corners are working on tackling and different routes they are going to see every week, just to get their actual work in.”
The Eagles may or may not be as professional in their approach as any other NFL team. But what they are doing is not normal. They have scored at least 27 points in each of their last nine games, have held their last two opponents to single-figure scoring, have won their last five by double-figures and routinely win with such ease that Doug Pederson’s leading gameday decision is when to drag Carson Wentz off the field for safety concerns.
For that, they will be asked to explain what has separated them from not just the median pro football side, but from the very good teams, too. And there was Pederson Sunday, going through his postgame routine, crediting what needed to be credited. Yet as he did, one phrase kept leaking into his analysis. Once, twice, then a third time, in so many variations, the Birds’ coach mentioned “the way they practice.” There are clichés, and coachspeak back-doors, and easily tossed around praise. But there was something in the way Pederson kept stressing the point that made it resonate.
Though Pederson is relatively inexperienced as an NFL head coach, he played for the Packers, Dolphins, Eagles and Browns, and was a Panthers draft pick. He’d been coached by Don Shula and Mike Holmgren and Andy Reid. He earned a Super Bowl ring as a deep backup with the 1996 Packers. So he knows greatness when he sees it, and he knows how Cleveland does things, too.
“I can’t speak, obviously, for what other teams do,” Pederson said. “I just know that I’ve practiced like this from a scheduling standpoint from when I was a player, in my days at Green Bay and when I was with Coach Reid in Philadelphia and places like that. We’ve practiced this way for a long time. Obviously, we’ve tweaked some things and I’ve tweaked some things.
“It’s just that you’ve got to put in the preparation and the hard work. There is no sacrificing that. Guys know how to take care of their bodies, No. 1, during the week. And they do a great job with their preparation.”
Not that anything that happens in the middle of the summer reveals much, but if there was any early hint that the Eagles had the potential to be a 10-1 team, it would have been when the Miami Dolphins rolled into the NewsControl Compound for a few days of training-camp practices. Acknowledging that one team was in its own practice center and the other was not, the Eagles made everything that week look easy. Each day, the Dolphins praised the Eagles and the way they were working. Though such controlled drills technically meant nothing, the Birds executed them with precision, while the Dolphins were made to be hooted and hollered at by cackling Eagles fans. There was a noticeable difference in the way the teams were practicing. Months later?
“All of the hard work we’re putting in is starting to pay off,” defensive tackle Tim Jernigan said. “It’s always good to go out there and see the results of hard work.”
So that’s the Eagles’ explanation for their success. And it’s plausible. Some teams have to work harder than others; not every organization is run exactly the same way. Still, the work ethic wouldn’t matter if the talent wasn’t there any more than the talent would succeed without the effort.
“I think we just have guys that love to come to work,” said Chris Long, who last year played for the champion Patriots. “You are not going to love every second of every day. I certainly don’t like practice much. But the ‘energy’ guys pick each other up. You might be having a bad day, but the good people in the building, the energy the guys bring, the energy Coach brings, it picks you up if you are not having a great day. There are enough good people and tone-setters in the building.
“It starts with good players. People would say, ‘What would you attribute being 10-1 to?’ I mean, listen: I think it starts with good players. And that’s a credit to the coaches and the front office, coaching good players well, bringing in the right people and all the other things. I have been on bad teams before that practiced well and had good people.
“So if you don’t have good players, well, good luck.”
So the Eagles, with plenty of good players, will work hard. The difference is, when it is all over, that will be them, out there working hard again.
Good luck beating that.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery.