Earlier today, we noticed a stream of tweets from writers covering the open portion of Monday’s first OTA practice for the Eagles under coach Chip Kelly. Many were pointing out the music blaring while the players put in work.
The folks at CrossingBroad.com have listed the entire 24-tune soundtrack, giving the zealous Eagles fans the recipe for the ultimate iPod playlist.
From AC/DC’s Thunderstruck to Van Halen’s Panama to Duran Duran’s Hungry Like The Wolf to 2Pac’s California Love to Haddaway’s What Is Love? to the current Icona Pop hit I Love It, there’s an apparent method to Kelly’s evident madness.
“There’s a lot of science behind it but I’ve got 12 minutes left in this thing so I can’t really get into the details of it but there’s some science behind it,” Kelly told reporters after practice. “We’ve used it for a while.”
Kelly said that his penchant for up-tempo practices started long ago, at the lower levels of college football.
“It started when we were at New Hampshire and then as I moved to Oregon, it was a little different when I was a coordinator and then changed a little bit more when I became the head coach,” Kelly said. “We want to be efficient in our time, we don’t want to be on the field for a long time, want to maximize the time we’re on the field, and obviously you see us go from tempo periods to teach periods, there’s a rhyme or reason to what we’re doing, time on task versus time teaching, and I think there’s a good balance of that. We want to get them in and get them out. But we also have to get a certain amount of work in.”
But it’s not non-stop action. Kelly explained that the goal is to simulate real football.
“Obviously we know we can’t practice full speed for the entire time we’re out there, so it’s got to be short bursts, but the game of football is short bursts,” Kelly said. “It’s really an anaerobic sport when you look at it, because you’re going hard for five to six seconds and then you’re taking a break, and that’s what we’re trying to get accomplished with these guys.”
Through it all, the music will be playing. It’s a phenomenon that is spreading through the NFL, and if/when teams like the Jaguars and Eagles have success with it, it will spread even more.