If You Only Read One Eagles Practice Recap

It should be this one by Sheil Kapadia:

We begin to see the new play-call structure. Offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur stands on the sideline with a walkie-talkie and calls the play into the quarterback’s helmet. But before each snap, every offensive player looks over to the sideline. An offensive assistant plays the role of third-base coach and runs through a variety of hand signals that relay personnel grouping and formation.

One second, he looks like he’s hula dancing. The next second, he’s a bear that’s clawing at his target. This is the system that Brent Celek said is going to change the league?

Chip Stew: Efficient Use of Practice Time

As a fan base,  we have about seven months until Chip Kelly kicks off the new era of Eagles football. That's not a lot of time to absorb the mountain of knowledge out there about Kelly, his offensive schemes, coaching style, practices, and everything else that we might want to know before Week One rolls around. To help us on this journey, I'm starting a new running feature to highlight articles that we can add to our pool of background information: the Chip Kelly Read of the Day, code name Chip Stew.

Our first entry is a classic. The PDF "Efficient Use of Practice Time" comes straight from Kelly's mouth. It's the coach talking about his philosophy regarding practices, coaching technique, quarterback play, and more:

Statistically, 33 percent of the assistant coaches become head coaches during their career. When I took over at the University of Oregon, the first thing we had to find out was "What do we stand for?" You have to answer that in your offensive, defensive, and special team philosophies. lf you are going to stand for something, it is not what you say it is. lt is what people see in your actions. People should be able to come, observe you, and in five minutes know what you stand for.

'I Don't Know What I Did'

Jeff McLane:

Juan Castillo screamed the play dead, strutted to the line of scrimmage, and unleashed a profanity-filled tirade on the Eagles’ first-round draft pick.

Fletcher Cox, welcome to the NFL.

“I don’t know what I did,” Cox said later. “But I said, ‘Yes, sir,’ gave him no lip back, and I just kept going.”

Must…. Resist… Juan Castillo incompetence joke.

2011 Will Test Utility of NFL Offseason Work

Work expands so as to fill the time available.

I’m sure everyone has come across this saying (also known as Parkinson’s Law) at some point in regard to school homework, projects at the office, or jobs around the house. But might it also apply to the NFL offseason?

In a normal offseason, NFL teams go through almost constant work. There are minicamps and weight training and film sessions and scouting and drills and preseason games. The events go on and on, filling almost the entire possible time between the end of one season and the start of the next. As the game has become more complex, we’ve largely accepted this increase as the cost of doing business. Some players complain about the workload, but it’s tough to side with guys who make millions but don’t want to work.

This interminable lockout, however, has already cut way back on the possible preparation time. Minicamps long forgotten, playbooks unable to be distributed. In lieu of “voluntary” workouts, the players have organized truly optional group practices. If the work stoppage stretches into the July and August, lost more will have to be cut back.

But how essential is this lost time? Are we likely to unprepared players and disorganized teams whenever football begins again? Could 2011 be the sloppiest season on record?

Bill Parcells doesn’t think so. He told Peter King, “I always felt like you really do a better job with less time than more time because when you have less time you focus immediately on what’s of the utmost importance. Whereas when you have a lot of time to deliberate as to what to do, a lot of times you kind of get off on little tangents.”

I tend to agree with Parcells. NFL teams may not be able to plan for every contingency, but the important things will be accomplished. However, 2011 will be an interesting test of his theory, and Parkinson’s Law in general. If football is still accomplished at a high level, perhaps there was never any need for offseason programs to become so comprehensive. On the other hand, if rookies produce at an all-time low we might be able to conclude that the opposite is true.

With any luck, we’ll find out soon enough.

Photo from Getty. Originally published at NBC Philadelphia.