Eagles Have Placed Clear Emphasis On Conditioning

One of the noticeable reactions to last season's collapse has been the Eagles emphasis on conditioning.

Eagles NT Jordan Davis / John McMullen/Eagles on SI

PHILADELPHIA - There are some dogged reporters still trying to perform the autopsy on the Eagles’ historic collapse last season, and some players have grown tired of that.

Count star left tackle Jordan Mailata in that mix.

“I’m about goddamn tired of talking about last year,” Mailata said. “I’m tired, I’ll be honest. I’m only looking forward. We can only learn so much from last year and we learned a lot.”

The contrast of 10-1 and the run of winning football dating back to the turnaround during Nick Sirianni’s first season as head coach in 2021, the franchise’s most successful span in its 91-year history, vs. the 1-6 implosion to end the 2023-34 campaign is so confounding that you get the feeling that even the organization doesn’t have a complete understanding of what went down.

Often in the NFL, actions speak far louder than words and two areas the Eagles seemed to have settled on after countless internal audits are the coordinators and conditioning.

Neophytes Brian Johnson and Sean Desai have been replaced by proven commodities in Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio, although the 2023 in-season switch at defensive coordinator from Desai to Matt Patricia is a cautionary tale to presuming experience in itself is any guarantee.

The conditioning aspect of things has been an emphasis since the spring. The Eagles moved on from former Vice President of Player Performance Ted Rath, a move tied to the belief that the conditioning could have been better with certain players last season.

Meanwhile, Fernando Noriega, previously the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, was bumped up to Director of Player Performance and Sports Science/Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, making it somewhat obvious where the organization placed the blame.

Expected franchise foundational pieces Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter have been the most obvious conditioning projects since the end of last season.

“You’ll see some different things,” Sirianni said before the camp started. “Again, that's so fluid. Like [Wednesday]  morning, I added 10-12 plays to practice. I'm like, ‘Hey, we felt good yesterday. Guys came back in great shape. You know what? I want to work a situational period today that is going to add a couple plays; I want to work a conditioning period today that's going to add a couple plays.’

“But that changes based off how the day is and how you think the guys are. That's just something that's completely fluid. You'll see a lot of the same things. There will obviously be differences. Everything was evaluated from last year. Again, don't want to belabor, we answered all the questions from last year. We've talked about that. But the things we learned from-- practice length, practice schedule, schemes – everything has been evaluated. Everything that we felt like needed to be tweaked has been tweaked.”

The approach to better conditioning has been emphasized during the first two days of the training camp with the coaches increasing tempo and even ending periods by making units run to the opposite end zone on Thursday.

“Physically, it’s coming along. It’s always a work in progress,” Davis said. “We try to say on the defense that we gotta be the best conditioned. The more we can play – that’s all across the board, not just me – the more we’re on the field, the better for our chances for success.”

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