When the Eagles first learned of their workweek schedule under new coach Chip Kelly, there was a little confusion.
Kelly had an order to the week that he had honed at Oregon and wanted to bring to the NFL. But it meant going against the league norm and shuffling schedules for many veterans who had become accustomed to business as usual.
Mondays were like Tuesdays. Thursdays were like Fridays. And Saturdays and Fridays flip-flopped. But there were so many other changes that it took some time for players to adjust.
The most prominent and discussed was having practice on Tuesday, a day most teams give players off. But through Kelly and his staff's research they had concluded that having physical activity a day earlier following a game would lessen the recovery time and have greater long-term benefits.
"It took us a while to believe we could even do it last year," linebacker Connor Barwin said. "But I remember hitting a point in like Week 6 or 7 - 'Wow, I actually feel the best I've felt on a Tuesday in the last four years of my career.' "
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By December last season, Kelly said, every veteran had said it was the best he had ever felt in the final month of the season. The results were there. The Eagles had arguably the healthiest team and had only six players miss 13 starts over the entire season because of injury. They won the NFC East.
Much has been made of Kelly's sports science program in how it relates to...
