Nick Piccone
With a knee injury to Jordan Matthews that will keep him out of action the next few weeks as the big story coming out of Eagles camp today, head coach Doug Pederson said today during his press conference that the team will stop doing live tackling drills. Many believed the change in tackling to no tackling was due to the injuries mounting the last week in camp.
“The padded days are not over. The live tackling drills will probably be over, but we will continue to practice in pads throughout training camp and into the regular season.”
Here’s what Pederson said after being asked if he made an adjustment to the tackling drills due to the possibility of increasing injuries.
“I’m not concerned as much about that. I just got to look at the overall health of the football team. It’s not about getting somebody hurt, but it’s protecting the guys that are out here. They’ve been doing an excellent job. These last six days have been tough and I wanted it to be tough on them. By no means are we where we want to be as a football team. But at the same time, I think we’ve made some big strides in the last week.”
The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane appeared on 97.5 The Fanatic with Rob Ellis and Harry Mayes and said that the quote Pederson gave might have been taken out of context because the team was never going to tackle today, or this week, anyway, because this could be all part of Pederson’s plan.
“I wasn’t there for the press conference because I was doing some other things. But I just don’t think he’s walking it back. I think this is all part of the plan. You know, three days before a game where you’re going to have tackling. I don’t think Doug’s intention was to ever tackle in practice. So, I think that may be misinterpreted right now. I may check with the Eagles to see if Doug can clarify that.
From what I understand, this is how Andy [Reid] did it, as well. It may not seem like there’s been more tackling, but in essence you get maybe three days where there’s been live tackling. So, from what I understand, and from what I remember from Andy’s practices, this was never going to be a tackle day anyway with it being that close to a game. And then after this, you have three more games. I’m not really sure why you would tackle in the practices. I think there’ll be some periods [where there will be] a little more hitting than typically in a Chip Kelly practice, but I don’t think that’s the case here.”
If live tackling for three days in training camp and then ceasing live tackling after that was the plan all along, I’m not quite sure what plan Pederson is trying to put in place. Matthews’ knee injury could have been much worse than missing a few weeks. But injuries also happen when live tackling doesn’t.
Mychal Kendricks left today’s practice with a hamstring injury. And, yes, he’s sort of notable for those types of injuries now. So far, the Eagles’ injured list looks like this, excluding Matthews’ knee injury: Marcus Smith (concussion), Jason Peters (quad), Malcolm Jenkins (hamstring), Mike Martin (knee), JaCorey Shepherd (hamstring) and Wendell Smallwood (quad).
So while we could all pile on Pederson for changing his live tackling philosophy seemingly overnight, it might not be that cut and dry. It could have been the plan all along.
UPDATE: NJ.com’s Eliot Shorr-Parks, during an appearance on WIP’s Josh Innes Show, said that he thinks the injury to Matthews is more serious than the team is letting on and he’d be surprised if he plays in any preseason game.