Williams: Training Negatively Affecting Eagles


Photo by: Jeff Fusco.

Photo by: Jeff Fusco.

Cary Williams was in no mood to celebrate following the Eagles’ thrilling 37-34 win over the Redskins Sunday.

The six-year veteran sees a problem. He believes he and his teammates are being overworked during the week, and thinks it is hurting their performance on game day.

“A lot of guys had no legs. A lot of guys coming in here were in a dogfight before the game even started. We’ve got to start taking care of our guys throughout the week in order for us to be productive and have more energy on Sundays,” said Williams.

“I think it negatively impacted a lot of people, and I’m not the only person. I’m just one that is man enough to stand up here and talk to y’all and address the issue that’s obviously in my opinion an issue in our starts. But again, I’m just employee 26. Whatever they deem necessary for us to be ready on Sundays is whatever it is, if we’ve got to find energy from outside source or whatever it may be to start games quick, then we’ve got to do it. But right now the way we’re doing it is not conducive to success.”

Williams was limited in practice this week with a hamstring injury. He said he never had hamstring problems prior to joining the Eagles but that it’s been an issue ever since he arrived in Philly.

Chip Kelly’s practices are run at a fast tempo in order to maximize reps. The players are in constant motion and cram a lot of work into a short period of time. Many have talked about how the intense training has led to better conditioning that helps them close out games in the fourth quarter. Williams sees it another way.

“It’s hard to go out there and fight for 60 minutes when you’re fighting throughout the week to make it through one practice,” said Williams, who was beat deep by DeSean Jackson Sunday and has had a less than stellar start to the season overall.

“When you don’t have legs, period, it shows up in games, period, throughout the game, period.”

Kelly’s approach to the work week is not exactly traditional. Where many teams don’t start practicing until Wednesday each week, the Eagles begin on Tuesday. He also believes it’s beneficial to work his players some on Saturday rather than going with the standard walkthrough. Williams did not point to this set-up specifically, but believes overall that the players are being asked to do too much.

“You do a lot of reps, man. We play several games in practice, we’ve done multiple reps and it’s taxing, it’s exhausting on your body. I’m 30 years old now and you’re expected to play at a high level. It’s difficult to do that,” said Williams, who technically won’t be 30 until December.  “You’ve got to find that energy and I don’t know where we’re going to find it. We’ve been able to muscle through that and fight through that as a team but modifications need to be made.”

Williams says that he has expressed his concerns to the coaching staff. Clearly, he thinks something needs to change.

“It’s awesome that we’re 3-0, it’s great, it’s tremendous. It just shows the resiliency of this team and the fight in this team. It shows everybody’s heart. It shows that even though we might not be 100 percent out there in the game when the ball is kicked off, we just play with a lot of energy, man — what we had. It’s just about guys trying to find a way to get it done,” he said. “We’ve been able to get it done. But to be honest with you, starting with low energy is not conducive to a winning society or winning program.”