The Eagles’ Casey Toohill hopes to prove that being a late-round draft pick in the COVID-19 season is a blessing not a curse
With preseason games canceled because of COVID, Toohill knows it's going to be tough to make the team's season-opening roster. It's made him that much more determined.
The odds of a late-round draft pick like Casey Toohill cracking an NFL roster are hard enough under the most normal circumstances. And thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s going to be absolutely nothing normal about the NFL’s 2020 season.
The Eagles’ spring minicamp and OTAs, when rookies are able to get more than 1,000 field reps and work closely with the coaching staff, were canceled.
While teams held daily virtual meetings online, training facilities were shuttered. So were gyms in most COVID-ravaged states, which left young players like Toohill, who don’t have $2 million cribs with home gyms, scrambling for places to train.
Then, late last month, the coup de grace: the league canceled all of its preseason games. Those games typically are a late-round/undrafted rookie’s best way to showcase his talents and make a case for a roster spot.
“I definitely was disappointed for a second,” said Toohill, an athletic, but undersized 6-4, 255-pound edge rusher out of Stanford who was taken in the seventh round by the Eagles. “But at the end of the day, with everything going on with [COVID], everybody has to make adjustments. It’s an unprecedented time.
“I can’t use that as an excuse. Even though there are no preseason games, I’m not going to use it as a crutch or whine about it. It’s going to be about putting your best foot forward every day in everything you do. Having the same energy, passion, attention to detail, whether you’re in the meeting room, around the building, in the weight room or on the field.
“It’s really [about] focusing on that, focusing on what I can control and my own performance. And then letting the rest work itself out.”
Toohill, who turns 24 next month, had eight sacks and 11 ½ tackles for losses last year as a fifth-year senior. He followed that up with an impressive workout at the scouting combine in February, running a 4.62 forty and jumping 39 inches.
But NFL teams viewed him a bit of a 3-4 linebacker/4-3 end ‘tweener. He showed up at the combine at just 247 pounds. The Eagles, intrigued by the athleticism he showed in Indy at the combine, took him with the 19th pick in Round 7.
Toohill worked hard during the spring to add weight, despite limited training access. He wasn’t going to use the pandemic as an excuse for not making an NFL roster.
“I just didn’t let that happen,” he said.
He bought a squat rack. Borrowed weights from friends. Eventually, he was able to find a place to work out that had more equipment.
“I knew I needed to gain weight,” said Toohill, who already has bulked up to 255. “From the first day that I went back home to San Diego [in mid-March after everything shut down] I had the foresight [to prepare for it]. I purchased the equipment I needed and I hit it hard every day.”
Toohill enters training camp as the seventh defensive end on a team that, unless 53-man rosters are expanded because of fear of potential COVID outbreaks, likely will keep no more than six. He’s behind Brandon Graham, Derek Barnett, Josh Sweat, Genard Avery, Joe Ostman and 2019 fourth-round pick Shareef Miller.
Because teams didn’t have any spring work, the first 2 ½ weeks of training camps are an “acclimation period’' made up of some weight-room work, some on-field conditioning, 60-to-75-minute walk-throughs and meetings. Tough to flash for the coaches in walk-throughs.
Players can’t even put helmets on until Aug. 14, and they can’t practice in pads until three days after that.
Teams are allowed a maximum of 14 padded practices between the Aug. 17 and Sept. 6, which is a week before the season opener against Washington. That leaves a very small window for face-in-the-crowd players like Toohill to convince teams they deserve a roster spot.
Or maybe not.
Since NFL teams aren’t in a bubble like the NBA and the NHL, there is a sense that the 2020 season is going to be a war of attrition, not only because of injuries, but COVID outbreaks. Someone like Toohill, who seems to be on the roster bubble right now, could wind up being a major contributor by mid-December depending on the COVID situation.
“I think this is actually a good time to be a late-round pick or free agent,” Eagles coach Doug Pederson said Monday. “The reason I say that is we’ve already had a week with them on the grass [without the veterans].
“They’re going to get some really good opportunities in these next coming weeks. They are going to learn a lot from the veterans. Then once we get to the padded portion of training camp is where we’ll really get to see where these guys are.
“It’s not just about the starters and getting them prepared, which we do every year. This year, more than ever, it’s [also] about getting these young guys [prepared]. Because we truly feel they’re going to be the ones who are going to have to help us throughout the entire season.”
The Eagles had 10 draft picks this year, which was the most they’ve had since 2011, when they had 11. Toohill was No. 10. He understands that he’s facing an uphill battle to make the roster and very likely could spend his rookie year on the team’s practice squad. But that’s not something he’s going to spend a lot of time thinking about right now. He’s in an NFL training camp, and for the moment at least, anything is possible.
“I know I have to compete,” he said. “My attitude is going to be to just bring my best every day and try to always improve and then let the chips fall where they may.”
The key for an edge rusher like Toohill, whose best weapon is his speed, is to continue to add weight and strength without it slowing him down.
“I want to be as heavy as I can and still retain my athleticism,” said Toohill, who would like to get up to about 260-265. “I know that kind of sounds like a cop-out answer. But it’s true.
“I’ve already gained some weight. I want to continue to add more. But I think it would be a mistake to try and rush to gain a ton of weight and then maybe feel like I’m slow or not as explosive.
“I’m just trying to gain it intelligently. Not put too much on at once. Focus on adding strength as well. Meeting with the [team] nutritionists and the strength staff and formulating a good plan.”