The first time in, well, suffice is to say the Eagles rookies were caught in a bit of culture shock. The pace of that three-day weekend was a blur, looking back. Coaches crammed information down the players' throats. The pace was something new -- get up early, rush to meetings at the NovaCare Complex, rush to practice, rush to the locker room, deal with a huge media throng, rush to lunch, rush to meetings and then get out to practice again.
"It was pretty exhausting," said defensive end Bryan Smith, a third-round draft pick. "Definitely different. Great, but looking back on it, yeah, it had me swimming a little bit mentally."
Smith is back in town as part of the team's Rookie (and selected veterans) Camp that runs Wednesday and Thursday at the NovaCare Complex. The pace of this camp, the first of the team's scheduled OTA's (Organized Team Activities), is going to be at a snail's pace relative to what happened earlier this month. Much of the work with the rookies comes in the classrooms, where the coaching staff can work on a more individual basis and see how much the kids retained from the previous camp and then feed them more from the playbooks.
On the field, the practices last slightly longer than one hour. Think of the practices as a half-speed workouts with coaches making sure the players are making the correct reads and understanding the adjustments they are supposed to make.
"I know that when the pads go on," said defensive tackle Trevor Laws, "everything changes. That's when the physical part begins. For the most part now, the biggest adjustment from college is the mental side of things."
How quickly the rookies go through this two-day camp, and the 12 days of practices that follow in the final week of May and the first couple of weeks of June go a long way toward determining how prepared they will be when the heat of Lehigh University welcomes the Eagles on July 21. Even then, for three days and five practices, the rookies will be relatively isolated in a more teaching-intensive environment. Not until the entire team arrives and the pads go on and Andy Reid dials up the full-contact practices will we get a true sense of this rookie class.
Even then ...
"I know it's going to come down to football and how hard I work and do the things that Coach (Juan) Castillo needs me to do," said seventh-round draft pick King Dunlap. "Coach Castillo puts players in the Pro Bowl. He's a great coach. I am here to listen to what he says. I know it's a long way to go for me. I'm going to work hard and do everything I can to get to where I want to be."
For the most part, the rookies went back home and relaxed after the mini-camp. They continued to work out, improve their conditioning, eat right and study their playbooks. Smith, labeled an "undersized" defensive end when he was drafted in third round and was listed at 231 pounds, is up to 241 pounds already. He is eating right. He is lifting with a program in mind. Understanding, at least a little bit, what the Eagles want from him, having that direction, is an important step for Smith and for every rookie.
Before the draft, the players were trying to impress every team. Now they can focus on a specific system and a method to doing things.
"It helps to know what the coaches want. We were only in for a few days, so there is a lot more coming, but at least we have an idea," said Smith. "This is a whole new world. It's fun. It's exciting. But it's also a business and you have to approach it that way.
"Everything I do is designed to making me a better fit in the defense and a better player here."
It is, frankly, impossible to predict how this rookie class will react to their first seasons. Some kids get it more quickly than others. Some never get it. The Eagles think they have a pretty sharp group here, a highly-intelligent, highly-athletic tensome of draft picks who will make an impact both now and down the road.
Right now, they are learning concepts. They are learning a foreign language. Laws admits that the jargon of the defense is the tough part right now. Everything he learned at Notre Dame has to be forgotten lickety-split. He is in the process of learning a new language, and he is going to have to be fluent by September. Playing at this level requires everyone to be on the same page, within the same discipline.
No longer can Laws, or any of the rookies, play "free-lance" football.
"We call stunts and blitzes and line shifts and all that stuff,'' said Laws. "I'm getting it down. I'm learning. This is part of the process. We're here to learn."
Welcome to Rookie Camp, fellas.
