Eagles receive advice from the ‘Zen Master’
Instead of casting a vote for Michael Jordan over Lebron James or the late Kobe Bryant as his favorite NBA player of all-time, Phil Jackson recently spoke to the Eagles about teamwork and the unheralded contributors who helped the Chicago Bulls win six league championships.
Jackson, one of the characters in “The Last Dance” documentary series about Jordan and the Bulls, dropped in on an Eagles Zoom meeting Thursday. It broke up the virtual monotony and gave Birds defensive end Brandon Graham something to post on Instagram.
Jordan was the superstar, Scottie Pippen another star for Jackson, the coach of those teams. But Bill Cartwright, Dennis Rodman, John Paxson
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9:20a.m.
Noon
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12:55 a.m. ESPN and Steve Kerr, among several others over the years, played their roles almost perfectly. That enabled the supers to play super.
“He just talked about how we persevered last year,” Graham said. “Pretty much you’ve got to have those moments where you stay in games, and when things go wrong, you’ve got to be able to keep the spirit up. He was just talking about some of the guys that kind of went unnoticed on the team that kind of kept them together.”
The Eagles were full of role players during the Super Bowl LII title run. Nick Foles stepped up at quarterback in place of the injured Carson Wentz and was named Super Bowl MVP. LeGarrette Blount gave the Birds a run game, Torrey Smith a deep threat at wide receiver. Halapoulivaati Vaitai replaced Jason Peters at left tackle and Chris
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Long gave the defense another pass rusher. Nickel back Patrick Robinson, who wondered if he would make the team, contributed the pick-six in the NFC title game that triggered a run of
38 straight points in a
38-7 victory.
Philly Special aside, Graham made the critical play in Super Bowl LII, stripping Tom Brady, enabling Derrick Barnett to recover. That allowed the Eagles to kick a field goal and hold on for a 41-33 victory.
“How you handle yourself as a teammate is very important,” Graham said. “You’ve got to have those moments where you stay in games and when things go wrong you’ve got to keep the spirit up.”
•••
The Eagles’ proposal for an alternative to the onside kick got more traction Friday with a tweak of the plan to give teams that score the option of converting a fourthand-15 from their own 25yard line twice in a game in lieu of kicking off.
Teams would be allowed to do so at any time in a game, not just when trailing, which was the Birds’ proposal.
A team that scores twice in essence can control the ball for three straight series.
The opposition takes over at the place it stops the offense from gaining
15 yards.
The original proposal didn’t eliminate the onside kick, which teams barely made use of last season, gaining possession on roughly 10 percent of the attempts.
Rules restricting formations overloading one side of the field – for the sake of players safety – have quietly killed the onside kick.
Fourth-and-long conversions are considerably easier than the onside kick.
It’s hard to believe the coaches wanting a piece of that. Andy Reid, who has the ultimate fourthand-long weapon in Patrick Mahomes, says he’s not a fan of the proposal.
Regardless, it’s coming up for a vote next week as are proposals to add a booth umpire and a senior technology advisor to assist the officiating crew during games.
The Eagles have another rules proposal likely to pass, one in which there would be automatic replay reviews of scoring plays and turnovers negated by a foul. The same with try attempts.
•••
We get that the average fan could care less about the media’s access to covering the NFL in this, the
COVID-19 pandemic season.
Sacrifices are going to have to be made. Right now, it sure looks like attendance at stadiums will be limited, at best.
Just look for a lot of unanswered questions for plays the players made and failed to make if there is no locker room access.
Don’t expect to know what’s going on behind the scenes if post-game availability is limited to Zoom conferences, as it is now.
At this time not much is known about the NFL’s plan for the media. The Pro Football Writers Association of America cautioned that coverage in the German Bundesliga featured a dramatic reduction in the number of reporters covering games.
Reporters of the games submitted their questions to a media officer who delivered them to players. The answers came on an app.
Only the entity with the TV rights could interview players as in the past.
Hopefully, the NFL doesn’t drive down that road.
The discerning fan should be able to see where this is going – more limitations and less information about his or her favorite team.
Certainly the policies of the NHL, the NBA and MLB, assuming they open this year will influence what the NFL does.