Ruben Frank does a regular column called Roob’s 25 Random Points. I love pieces like this. You get a little bit of everything. And writer’s don’t force writing hundreds of words on stuff that isn’t interesting. Here is an Eagles Training Camp version.
2. Chip Kelly says he’s going to practice in the middle of the afternoon because, “That’s when we play our games.” But they don’t play their games in the middle of the summer. If we have another weather week like last week, with temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s in the thick of the mid-day sun, it would be insane if he didn’t switch up the schedule and practice much earlier or much later. I understand trying to toughen guys up, but practicing in full pads for 2½ hours when it’s 100 degrees out is dangerous and makes no sense. The Eagles have one 1 p.m. game before Oct. 6 (Chargers Sept. 15). Moving practice to a smarter time isn’t going to hurt this team’s ability to play at a high level at 1 p.m.
I’m actually going to disagree with Roob here. I think Chip can get away with practicing at 1230pm because he’s not going to run physical, pounding sessions. Chip will have players moving fast, but the overall length will be less than they are used to and the hitting will be much less than in Andy’s tenure.
Players do have body clocks so I think it is interesting to try to practice at the time when games are played. I’m all for this experiment. If it fails, you change next summer. Why not try something new? If Kelly was an old school coach who wanted to grind his players down I would absolutely agree this is wrong. That’s just not who he is.
Considering the NSA level monitoring the players will be subjected to, I can’t imagine they won’t be monitoring hydration levels, body heat, heart rate, etc for safety.
I think the bigger mistake would be wearing a t shirt to a job at microsoft.