In this final week of voluntary OTA’s, head coach Andy Reid is putting a little more emphasis on Special Teams drills. We don’t get many play-by-play tweets from inside media reporters about the ST drills. They are not the glamorous parts of practice. But for several players they will be the foundation of what enables them to make this team.
Andy Reid spoke at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Broomall, PA on Sunday…Andy looks trim, doesn’t he?
I won’t get into the ball-handlers of the punting and place-kicking aspects of ST’s today, I’m more focused on the blocking and coverage and tackling positions involved…These are assignments that can keep a hustling back-up linebacker or a 5th receiver in the league for many years because they excel at a very specific task on coverage and returns squads.
Bo Wulf is a guy who does not get enough exposure or attention over at PE.com, but he does a lot of leg-work for Dave Spadaro and Chris McPherson, and often comes out with some great feature articles of his own. It always pains me to read a good blurb by Bo Wulf and then notice how few people comment in reply to the piece.
I’d like to give Bo Wulf some props here with an excerpt from his very nice article on Special Teams competition shaping up for the Eagles regarding the “Gunner” assignment:
‘Elsewhere on special teams, April and the Eagles will look to find a temporary replacement for coverage standout Colt Anderson, who is rehabbing his way back from a torn ACL. Anderson is hoping to be ready for training camp, but April has to move forward preparing for a plan B. Unfortunately, there’s an inherent problem in evaluating special teams prior to Week 1. ‘
‘”Colt is a tough guy to replace because I think he’s one of the best players in the league, special teams players for sure,” said April. “We’ve got some guys who have done a good job. I think Brandon Hughes did a good job in his plays. I thought Riley Cooper got better his second year as a gunner out there. I think Curtis Marsh has got an opportunity to be good. As a gunner, we’ve got a couple of guys who can do it. But we also make cuts too, so you don’t know who exactly is going to be on the team. You just don’t know. It’s a little bit different if the defense pencils in a guy to be a starting corner, they know he’s going to be here. If I pencil in a guy to be a starting gunner, I don’t know if he’s going to be here. So you’re always dealing with a bigger number than just saying this guy or this guy. You have to anticipate. And it’s tough to give the guys many reps because if we punt six times in a preseason game, how are you going to work eight different guys? I mean you can, but then they get one rep.”‘
Thanks to Bo Wulf and Bobby April for that excerpt, I learned something about the difficulty of building a good coverage unit from a logistics perspective. A similar difficulty faces the ST coach when he plans out his blocking assignments on return plays. You need to know who has made the final roster before you can actually install your blocking assignments. For now, though, April is getting a few extra minutes each day at practice to teach some basic design concepts to the guys who are here.
Interesting to note— Monday practice, June 4th— the first team offense went 11-on-11 against a scout team defense with a Redskins look… No Jason Kelce, DRC or DeSean Jackson today…Brandon Boykin got some rave review tweets from Jeff McLane… I’ll update later with a summary of any other notable tweets from practice…
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