Adrian Fedkiw
Doug Pederson wants his players to hit in training camp and isn’t afraid of injury. Here’s what the Eagles head coach had to say about the subject last week during a press conference.
I fully believe that you’ve got to practice in pads quite a bit, and I feel like it’s important from a timing aspect in your run game. It’s just so important, not only offensively, but defensively, as well, for linebackers and safeties and guys that need to be around the line of scrimmage and make plays,” he said.
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[It’s important for] run lanes and blitzes and all of that needs to be done in pads. I’m a big believer in putting the pads on and banging a little bit. And the way training camp is structured, we’ll test them for about three or four days, kind of go hard, and then we’ll back off a little bit, take the pads off, let them recover, put them back on, let them recover again and just kind of ramp up to the regular season that way.”
This is a stark contrast from Chip Kelly, who elected not to have the players tackle themselves to the ground in an effort to avoid injury and take care of the players’ bodies.
Hitting is regulated by the collective bargaining agreement during voluntary and mandatory mini camp.
That’ll make the training camp sessions for the fans a hell of a lot more fun.