Eagles practice has come a long way under Pederson

DOUG PEDERSON drew the sharpest contrast so far between his regime and that of former coach Chip Kelly, when Pederson was asked Sunday about the Eagles' three-hour Saturday practice, and the way his coaches pause to correct mistakes between plays.

Pederson said three hours is going to be the norm, though Sunday's first of two public workouts, at Lincoln Financial Field, would be a bit shorter. Correcting as you go, he said, is fundamental.

"It's the only way we're going to get better. It's the only way," Pederson said. "I'm also a believer that you spend time in the meeting room at night, watching the tape and making corrections there as well, but if you can get that immediate feedback right now, on the field . . . There's been situations, for instance, it happened yesterday with Zach Ertz, where he just, he was (split wide) as a tight end and he ran a slant and he got jammed up. (After a correction) we came back later in the practice and ran the exact same play. He got the same coverage, he learned from it, and we completed the pass . . . I don't want to take too much time away, because we're still working off a play clock, but at the same time, that instant feedback is valuable."

This was part of the much-publicized difference of opinion veteran safety Malcolm Jenkins had with Kelly late last season, on how mistakes were addressed. Kelly felt his hurry-up tempo was the top priority, and nothing should interfere with that. He did not want to stop practice. He saw no disadvantage to waiting until film review of practice, in a position meeting, to correct mistakes.

In fact, some veterans, and former players who watched practice, thought the finer points of position play were pretty much ignored by Kelly, in the theory that if you had the opponent off-balance, you didn't need to be so precise.

It certainly doesn't seem impossible to succeed doing it Kelly's way, but is it really every bit as effective to wait to make a correction as it is to address a problem immediately?

Wideout Nelson Agholor, whose 2015 rookie season was a struggle, made the point Sunday that mistakes can snowball - if you do something wrong once, and it isn't corrected right away, you might do it wrong again.

"As soon as you make a mistake, we'll talk about it in one drill, and then we'll have an opportunity to show that you took coaching in another drill, because we'll probably run the same concept, same route, same blocking technique," Agholor said.

It would be wrong to suggest everyone hated everything about the way Kelly practiced and everyone loves every aspect of Pederson's approach; the players are on the field a lot longer now.

"It's a grind," Agholor acknowledged. "It's something you have to embrace. You have to utilize it to get yourself in true football shape."

Corner Nolan Carroll said: "We expect to be out there longer. This is a true training camp. This is dog days right now. We just gotta kinda grind it out. The schedule's not gonna change. It's designed to make us tougher. When it gets to December and January, those months, we kind of look back at these times and we know this is where the foundation started, from doing this stuff out here."

Carroll, coming back from surgery to repair a broken right fibula, had to leave Saturday's practice early. But he and the coaches seem to be on the same wavelength about monitoring how his leg feels and being cautious about overdoing. Pederson said Sunday that like mentor Andy Reid, he will make sure veterans get rest.

Defensive end and special-teams ace Bryan Braman noted that one part of Kelly's approach was that Kelly "wanted us winded a little bit more, kind of challenge us a little bit more with that aspect, being mentally tough through fatigue and stuff like that."

Kelly felt if you could master a task despite being exhausted, that would pay benefits at crunch time. But the 2015 Eagles, 6-9 when Kelly was fired, brought into question whether tasks were ever being mastered, as practice hurried along.

"For me personally, as a kinesthetic learner, someone who has to go through the motions, (making corrections during practice) is the best way that I learn," Braman said. "As a fit, I enjoyed the way (Kelly) did things and the way he ran things, but I enjoy the extra little bit of time you get on the field (now), being able to talk with the coach, breaking it down while it's still fresh in your head. Being able to go through it, understand what happened, he'll correct you a little bit, and then you're able to go back at it."

Braman said the extra time spent on the field in the heat right now is mitigated by the slower tempo. "It allows us to catch our breath a little bit," he said.

Right tackle Lane Johnson has the same position coach - offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland - he had under Kelly, but the emphasis is different, said Johnson, who was a Kelly critic.

"A regular football game is three hours, so practice should be three hours," Johnson said, echoing an explanation Pederson gave Saturday. "It just gives you a lot more time to go over stuff you may have missed. It gives you more time to work on your craft."

Defensive end Connor Barwin said he would be fine doing things either way.

"Both are proven to work. I've done both in the league," Barwin said. "I'm happy to be doing it the way we are now. We've had three really good practices. My body feels good. I think we're getting better - today was better than yesterday - and that's really what practice is about."

@LesBowen

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