Pederson’s training camp approach will make Birds a hit
PHILADELPHIA » Never a prisoner of criticism, never terrified of the second-guess, ever confident in his own professional selections, Doug Pederson annually faces two training camp choices. He can coach a football team. Or he can behave like the last guy to coach the Eagles and turn the exercise into a self-defeating waste of a summer.
By Tuesday, when Pederson’s second Eagles training camp entered a more serious stage, it was the sounds that would reveal his decision. For one, there was no music; no hiphop, no country, no 80s blasts, no screaming rock and roll. There were no mammoth speakers. And there were no nearby neighbors having their peace disturbed.
For another, there was the occasional thud. And pro football is made for thuds.
Chip Kelly never believed in allowing his players to commit tackle football any more than 20 times a year, preseason games included. Once, he allowed it in a playoff game. Not coincidentally, it was the only postseason game he would coach. He would set his practices to a beat and a tempo, accompanied by those boom boxes, terrified that anything more violent would only inconvenience the medical staff.
But last year, and definitely Tuesday when Pederson’s full Eagles roster was due to amp up its training, there were pads and there was tackling and there was, it would likely figure, value.
To play pro football it helps to practice pro football.
So that’s what Pederson tends to order.
“I took the same approach as last year,” Pederson said. “I wanted to make sure the guys understood that we were going to hit and we were going to have a couple live sessions. Today was a live day. Not every period today was live. Only two. On Thursday, I’ve got another one.
“The guys are prepared for it. They understand it. I think it’s great. It does fuel some emotion, positively. It fuels the competition. It’s good to see.”
High on the list of coaching truths, in any sport, is that there is more than one productive way to prepare a team. Some coaches prefer one style. Some prefer something else. But the deeper into the 21st century sports penetrates, the more it is being pushed around by the timid. Often camouflaged in lab coats and characterized as sports scientists, they tend to order the reduction in off-day effort with the result being a lesser risk of injury. Brilliant as they believe they are, none of that is high science. Want to avoid injury? Don’t ever play. Ever. The flaw in that approach is that the random nature of sports still puts athletes at in-game injury risk no matter how bubble-wrapped they were during practices.
One reason Kelly failed as the Eagles coach was that he had injury problems. Another was that his teams didn’t tackle very well. So he was a sad 0-for-2 in the flagfootball approach to preparation.
Maybe Pederson can coach. Maybe not. Until last season, he’d never been a head coach at any level higher than a 12th-grade team. Then he went 7-9 as the coach of the Eagles. So he still bears some proof burden. But if he’s shown nothing else in his year-plus in charge, it is that he does not care if others think he is doing something wrong.
Call for a play, not a punt, on fourth down? Check. Run the quarterback into the wrong side of a defense? Check. Order hitting in August, just so the players will be better prepared to hit in December? Check and double check.
So there were the Eagles, with training camp barely having begun, in pads and in a mood to collide, even if there were enough critics worrying that a stretcher would be dragged onto the field at any time.
“A bunch of the coaches always say that you can’t really evaluate until you put the pads on,” linebacker Joe Walker said. “It’s a whole different game with the pads on.”
There are some similarities to previous camps. The quarterbacks still wear red and are not to be hit. The hitting that is done is limited, at least, by professional courtesy; no one is looking to make a highlight reel by knocking off a helmet; there are some restrictions on hitting too high or too low. And just to show that Pederson isn’t so resistant to modern thought, he does have Carson Wentz on a practice pitch count, to keep his arm fresh.
“Everybody does it a different way,” said Birds defensive end Chris Long, formerly of the Patriots and Rams. “In St. Louis, we used to do it every once in a while, too.”
And since Long is the son of Hall of Fame pass rusher Howie Long, naturally he has heard every back-in-the-day training camp tale … some of which he might even believe.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Back then, it was six hours a day.”
Times change, and so do techniques. Some are even recycled. Let others run their training camp to music. Doug Pederson will do it his way and run it to the sounds of football.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery