The Matchup: Eagles Vs. Vikings
FIVE LEFTOVERS
1. You may have noticed that most Eagles players chose not to wear long sleeves underneath their jerseys last week. I surveyed the guys in the locker room for an explanation. First up was Mychal Kendricks.
“Before we went out, I asked everyone: ‘Short-sleeves? We’re gonna go short-sleeves?’ ” Kendricks explained. “And people were like: ‘No, no, no.’ Then we made a fine. If you go out there with long-sleeves, you get fined. So everyone was wearing short-sleeves.”
Well, not everyone. Kendricks called out backup linebacker Emmanuel Acho as one of the few who didn’t join “the movement.”
“The starters went no sleeves,” said Acho. “The guys that are primary special-teams like myself, I went sleeves. It all comes down to personal preference. If you’re out there playing every play then you kind of stay insulated. But if you’re not, you’ve gotta use Vaseline, you’ve gotta use sleeves. You’ve gotta use something called warm skin, whatever it takes.”
Acho said Kendricks tried to rag on him, but denied that there was any kind of fine.
“He tried to give me a hard time, but I pointed out that [Brandon] Boykin was wearing sleeves as well,” Acho said.
So why did Boykin wear sleeves?
“It really wasn’t that cold to be honest,” Boykin said. “A lot of ‘em feel like it weighs ‘em down or if they get a pick, it might slip or something like that. But for me, I like to be warm. That’s the most important thing. As long as I hold onto the ball returning the ball I’m good.”
Did teammates give him a hard time?
“No, and even if they did, those sleeves weren’t coming off so it was whatever.”
Cary Williams went no sleeves and said they had a rule in Baltimore that prohibited players from wearing sleeves in the cold.
“In Baltimore it was a rule: No sleeves,” he explained. “We’re gonna go out there and out-tough these guys. We’re gonna intimidate these guys and we’re gonna fly around and play football. We’re not worried about the weather. That was the whole mentality. And I think that around the league it’s the same type of mentality. So here it’s the same thing.”
I probably should have titled this section: Another example of why football players are wired differently than you and me.
2. McManus last week caught up with Riley Cooper about his contract situation. The Eagles’ wide receiver is scheduled to become a free agent after this season.
One personnel man told Len Pasquarelli of the National Football Post that Cooper could be a “sleeper” free agent this offseason.
My take? Cooper is not someone you overpay (or even pay market value) to. There’s no denying that he’s played really well. But given Cooper’s past performance, the guess is the front office will feel they can find someone with a similar skill set elsewhere.
That’s not to say they won’t consider bringing him back. Considering this summer’s incident, is Cooper really going to want to go to a locker room with 52 strangers and try to establish credibility?
From a football perspective, is he going to find a scheme that suits him as well as this one? In other words, I think the Eagles will have some leverage if they want to bring him back. But as always, it only takes one team to make a lucrative offer, and Cooper may want to cash in.
3. The Eagles are entering the stretch run as a very healthy unit. Among starters (or potential starters) who began the season healthy, Earl Wolff (knee) and Williams (hamstring) are the only players who have issues going into Sunday’s game.
Many are quick to point to the sports science angle. And while I think dedicating a department to sports science is a great idea, we need to hold off before drawing any conclusions. Football Outsiders uses a metric called Adjusted Games Lost to rank the teams that are most (and least) affected by injuries. Among the five healthiest teams last year, only one (the Saints) ranked in the top five the previous year.
The Eagles were the second-most healthiest team in 2011 and ranked 18th last year.
Bottom line: Let’s wait until we get a few years of data before drawing any conclusions.
4. Kelly was asked this week whether he’s ever had a team that overlooked its opponent. He said he didn’t think so.
“I think we have the same approach every week no matter who we play,” he said. “We respect all, but we fear none. That’s just a concept that we’ve always had. I think on any given Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Thursday, whenever you have to play, there’s another opponent out there on the field. Any time you don’t take them for what they are, then you’re bound to be on the losing end of it.”
It’s fair to consider whether this is a letdown spot for the Eagles. They’ve won five in a row and have a Sunday night matchup against the Bears next week before facing the Cowboys in the finale. The Vikings are 3-9-1 and will likely be without Adrian Peterson.
Clearly, the head coach is guarding against a letdown. We’ll find out Sunday how successful he is.
5. I think the dumbest storyline of the week is: Is Nick Foles going to get a big head now that he’s on the cover of SI? Spend five minutes around Foles or talk to any of his teammates/coaches and you’ll realize he’s as grounded as they come. A lot of athletes will say they don’t like the extra attention, accolades, etc. With Foles, I really think it’s true.
As T-Mac joked recently, don’t expect Foles to all of a sudden show up to a press conference wearing a fur coat and sunglasses with a model on each arm. By all accounts, he’s a football junkie who remains even-keeled regardless of the circumstances.
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