Veterans who were hoping to stay on the roster and rookies who were trying to make it were all doing what they could to impress first-year Eagles Head Coach Buddy Ryan with their toughness, which he valued as a way to build a winning culture, during a 1986 Training Camp scrimmage in Detroit.
Some did and some didn't.
One who definitely did though, William Frizzell, a third-year scrappy defensive back and special teams standout, played for the Lions.
"We did team drills and his guy Andre Waters, he was lighting up people," Frizzell said. "So I was like, 'Hey, if they're doing it in 7-on-7, I'm doing it too.' That was on tape, and they liked what they saw and brought me in after Detroit released me. Buddy said, 'We was the only one over there that was fighting.'"
After signing as a free agent in October, Frizzell would play in eight games, mostly on special teams. He started five games at cornerback the following season. And in 1988, Frizzell had three interceptions. He also led the special teams with 24 tackles and was voted as the unit's MVP.
"It was awesome. We were putting in the work and having a good year," Frizzell said. "I was doing a whole lot of blocking punts and making a lot of nice tackles on special teams. It was exciting. And for them to vote for me, that felt like my Pro Bowl."
After posting a career-high four interceptions in 1989, Frizzell returned his first interception for a touchdown when he picked off a Jeff Rutledge pass and ran it 30 yards to paydirt against Washington during a November nationally-televised Monday Night Football game in 1990.
"What I remember most about it is the way it went down. I saw it coming and broke on the ball, and then I went down the sideline," he said. "I remember going up and rocking the baby with the football, flipping it behind my back. I remember the whole play. I kept the ball and I've also got a picture of me holding up the ball when I ran it in the end zone. We had a hell of a game that day."
Besides finding the end zone to help earn a 28-14 win over their division rivals, after Washington lost six players to injury, Frizzell also gave the game a label that has gone down in Eagles history – The Body Bag Game.
"We were playing, and one quarterback went out. Then another one went out and the third string came in," he said. "We're standing there by the sideline and I'm talking to (Washington's) Coach (Joe) Gibbs. I said, 'Coach, y'all gonna need some more body bags. Y'all running out players over there.' He just looked at me. What can he say? I mean, they were tending to players on the sideline.
"For some reason, it was a hot mic. And after that, it just took off. But it meant a lot to be part of that game."
It also meant a lot to Frizzell to be a part of Ryan's infamous 46 defense, a scheme that caused confusion for offensive linemen.
"I loved it," he said. "It was challenging and it took a whole lot of studying. You had to be able to adjust on the move because when we went to the 46, it was all based on formation. You could be playing one defense and switch into another defense as they moved around.
"You always were thinking. And you caught a lot of teams blindsided because we were blitzing off those defenses and at the same time, playing man-to-man. There's not a lot of teams that could do that at the time because you had to have a lot of versatile people."
After spending the 1991 season with the Cardinals, Frizzell was back home and helping coach the defense at his alma mater North Carolina Central University when the Eagles came calling.
"I wasn't surprised, but I was surprised," Frizzell said. "I was cutting my grass and my neighbor ran outside, 'Hey, Andre Waters just got hurt! I know that the Eagles are going to pick you up.' And I said, 'They've got a lot of people. But we'll see.' And I just went back to cutting grass. That next morning, they called me."
Frizzell would finish out that 1992 season and play all 16 games the next year before leaving the game, having spent seven of his 10 years in the NFL with Philadelphia.
What are among his fondest memories as an Eagle?
"The biggest ones are The Body Bag Game, losing to Chicago in the (1988) Fog Bowl, though that was very disappointing. Beating the Cowboys," Frizzell said. "Just a whole lot of them because of the great group of guys that I played with. We kind of grew up together because Buddy had a revolving-door mind in his first year there. He would cut you and bring you back, cut you and bring you back.
"But to be able to play for 10 years. To be part of a good team. To be part of that whole Philadelphia experience. Just being part of the whole NFL thing. And then my family kind of grew up in the game, that meant a lot."
Making their home in Raleigh, North Carolina, Frizzell and his wife, Cheryl, have three daughters: Ashley, Faren, and Sydney; and two grandchildren.
For the past eight years, he has been the Operations Manager for Crothall Healthcare, which provides support services to Duke University Hospital in Durham.
"We're like a company within a company. We're on the patient care side of it, keeping the rooms clean, cleaning the building," Frizzell said. "It's almost like a team-type atmosphere because a lot of times, people are going through the whole lot. And the one thing they want is their loved ones to be taken care of and that their room is clean.
"The people treat them well, and you want to make sure that you do your part in the scheme of things. You're making sure that you take care of the people and want their families to know that their loved ones are being taken care of while they're there."
