Philadelphia Eagles Add a Padded Practice Ahead of Seattle Seahawks Tilt: What's Behind It?

The Philadelphia Eagles had players put pads on Thursday instead of the expected walk-through.

PHILADELPHIA - There is a wide berth between an anxious fan base demanding a scorched-earth approach after suffering the ignominy of watching their beloved Philadelphia Eagles falling from their perch as a 10-1 pace car in the NFL to a 10-3 team tied for the league’s best record, and the thought is that it should be business as usual after two blowouts to the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys.

As expected, Nick Sirianni was far closer to the latter but he did ultimately tweak things Thursday at the NovaCare Complex. The players arrived expecting a walk-through and found themselves on the field in pads.

“We're not locked into any schedule,” Sirianni said before the session. “Everything is fluid in attempts of getting better. I feel like here this is a chance for us to get better in the sense of we need to go out there and work on our fundamentals.”

Nick Sirianni wanted his team working on fundamentals / © Bill Streicher, USA TODAY

It was a tacit admission that some of the younger and newer players need more work to get back to where the team expects itself to be.

“I think it's just one of those (things) that we looked and the mirror and said some of the young guys probably need a few more reps,” veteran tight end Dallas Goedert said. “We need to make sure they are continually are growing this time of the year. So I think it's a good thing that we decided to do.

“I'm expecting the team to go out there with energy and take advantage of this opportunity.”

The Eagles needed significant reps from rookie defensive backs Sydney Brown and Kelee Ringo in a 33-13 loss to Dallas last Sunday and more could be coming with Reed Blankenship dealing with a concussion and Darius Slay playing through a knee issue.

“They need full-speed reps so they can kinda see it, where the vets don't need it as much,” said Goedert.

The Eagles also have veteran in-season additions, the latest being linebacker Shaq Leonard, who could be in line for a larger role Mondy night in Seattle after Zach Cunningham missed practice with a knee injury.

“Coaches want to shake up the room a little bit,” team captain Brandon Graham said. “Shake it up and let people know, OK, we’re going to have to change something. And I’m OK with that because I know at the end of the day when the confetti is coming down these moments right here are the ones you remember. That we had to make a change in order to make this run.

“And I’m all in and we’re all in. We’ve got to exhaust everything.”

An extra hour of practice on a random Thursday in mid-December isn’t exactly changing the play-calling structure or firing a coordinator but it’s also not nothing.

How it’s viewed will be judged by the performance at Seattle where the ship will either be righted or those abandoning it will grow exponentially.

“We're late in the year,” Sirianni said. “Sometimes late in the year you don't have this opportunity because you’ve got to balance them being rested, got to balance them playing fresh, while also being ready physically and mentally. So, this one we have an extra day. … That's why we're going out there today and having a practice.

“... We felt like we wanted to get out there today to work some fundamental things. Does that mean that's going to happen next week? No. Every week is a little bit different. Every week allows you to do different things. We feel as a football team we needed to do that this week.”

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