Nick Sirianni’s soft practice schedule makes sense for the Eagles in the new NFL

At some point, we’re going to have to acknowledge that Nick Sirianni and Howie Roseman are right: Less is more.

According to a groundbreaking plan formulated by the head coach and the general manager, the Eagles spend less time at practice than Allen Iverson. They hit less than an Atlantic City slot machine. They take more mental reps than a spelling bee contestant.

They consider practices against other teams, such as the one they’ll have Thursday at Cleveland, as valuable for preparation as preseason games. They use those practices to prepare their starters, mainly because they can control the pace and tenor of the competition.

And it works. At least, it worked last season.

The Eagles won the opener, went 9-8, and reached the playoffs, all in a rebuilding year with an overmatched rookie coach. How? Mainly, because they were healthy all season, and fresh after Thanksgiving. Talk all you like about their weak schedule. Their opponents had weak schedules, too, largely because they faced a four-win team from 2020. That team was the 2020 Eagles.

The Birds last season cut the number of games missed due to soft-tissue injuries by about 75% and cut the number of games missed due to all injuries by almost 60%. That might have been luck, but man, that’s a lot of luck.

Little wonder that this year they’ve doubled down on easing up. They opted to use only six of their 10 OTA sessions, and worked about as hard as road construction flagmen. They eliminated mandatory minicamp altogether. This year they have a walk-through every third day at training camp — a recovery day, yes, but this method means that the 30-something veterans no longer get “rest days.” If this camp was any easier, their protein smoothies would come with little umbrellas in them.

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Good for them.

Sirianni believes shorter, more intense sessions — an hour one day, 85 minutes the next, etc. — have the same benefit as the 2½-hour death marches of the past, as long as the number of plays is roughly equal and as long as the players execute proficiently.

It makes sense.

The Eagles are one of several teams going beyond the lighter preseason routine players negotiated in the last collective bargaining agreements — Sean McVay hasn’t played the Rams starters in a preseason game since 2017, and he’s holding the Lombardi Trophy these days — but the only place that comes close to running anything like Club Nick is Denver, with rookie head coach Nathaniel Hackett.

This, as you might imagine, is causing a stir in the home of the “Orange Crush” defense. But back when Lyle “The Animal” Alzado hunted QBs from the right end of the defensive line, most players showed up for camp looking more like walruses than panthers. They needed six preseason games to sweat out all the Coors they’d drank since January.

Now, players show up looking like underwear models. And that’s just the offensive linemen.

For decades, players have been telling us that training camp is too long, that camp practices are unnecessarily brutal, and that butting heads in August makes for beaten men come December. Now that the Eagles are finally listening to the sports science division -- on which, according to a former Eagles employee, they’ve spent $20 million in the last decade -- we’re sounding like crotchety old has-beens who still think running the ball wins football games and that linebackers matter.

Analytics won Doug Pederson a Super Bowl. If you’re going to analytic, you’ve got to analytic with the medical nerds, too.

It’s astonishing that we’re even having this conversation after the miracle Sirianni worked last year.

Before you tell me to get off your lawn, consider what Sirianni had to work with in 2021.

His quarterback, Jalen Hurts, had started four games and didn’t progress much from Year 1 to Year 2. His most potent offensive weapon, DeVonta Smith, was a rookie wide receiver who weighs about as much as Taylor, Sirianni’s 5-year-old daughter. His most polished offensive player, Zach Ertz, got traded when the team was 2-4. He lost his best pass rusher, Brandon Graham, to injury in Game 2, but Graham was 33. He worked with Jonathan Gannon, a first-time defensive coordinator, and his offensive coordinator, Shane Steichen, wasn’t allowed to call plays for the first seven games; yes, Sirianni was a hindrance to himself.

Nevertheless, 9-8. Why? Health.

“It’s all about player health,” Sirianni said last month when camp opened.

But don’t players need to be pushed to exhaustion in the blazing sun? Don’t they need to risk concussions and hip pointers and groin strains to prepare their bodies for the pageantry battles they stage every Sunday?

Malcolm Jenkins fetched a chair to the sideline for star running back DeMarco Murray, whose injury status with the 2015 Eagles seemed ... contrived. Malcolm Jenkins would have vomited if he’d seen Sirianni’s practice schedule.

Whatever. By Sirianni’s calculus, football players need three times as much rest as God. At least He worked six days straight.

“Numbers tell us not only on our team, but throughout the league that soft-tissue injuries shoot up [on the third] day,” Sirianni explained. “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to get soft-tissue injuries, right? There are probably going to be some.”

There are a few, but the only significant player with any sort of soft-tissue issue is running back Miles Sanders, who missed Sunday’s practice with “leg soreness.”

The Eagles’ starters certainly weren’t winded in their preseason opener Friday. They looked fit in the season opener last year, and they looked like spring chickens compared with their competition as they won their first four games in December last year.

It put a new spin on the phrase “health benefits.”

“We’re doing as much as we possibly can to prevent those things,” Sirianni said. ‘My job is to make sure that the team is ready to play. I have to listen to the experts. I have to listen to our doctors. I have to listen to the strength and performance staff. I have to listen to the trainers.”

That’s why they hired the doctors and strength coaches and trainers. Why would you ignore them?

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Yes, the Eagles began 2021 with five losses and two wins. But they won their opener, 32-6, in Atlanta on Sept, 12, and nobody in Philly was whining about Sirianni’s short practice sessions on Sept. 13. They then lost to a 49ers team whose 10 wins in 2021 included two over the eventual Super Bowl champion Rams and won a playoff game; lost to a 12-win Cowboys team, lost to a 12-win Chiefs team, beat the Panthers, then lost to a 13-win Buccaneers team, and lost in Las Vegas to a team that went to the playoffs.

These were what we call “likely outcomes.”

Yes, the Eagles committed a franchise-record 35 penalties in the first three games, and 13 of them happened before the snap. Might the team have been more disciplined if it practiced more? Perhaps. But it was healthy players committing those penalties, all in the first year of their offensive and defensive schemes, all with a first-time full-time starter at quarterback.

Growing pains are better than physical pain.

From here, the issue lies again with the defense. Gannon used a simple scheme last season, virtually abandoning the use of the blitz in his first month on the job. Despite its simplicity, confusion reigned.

The Eagles are looking at a similar situation this year. The players are older, and they’re better, and there’s more familiarity with Gannon, but roster changes merit more live defensive reps.

At what price? Graham reinjuring his $13 million Achilles? Thirty-one-year-old Fletcher Cox straining his $14 million hamstring? Thirty-one-year-old Darius Slay pulling a $16 million groin?

Cox has said he “absolutely” endorses Sirianni’s preservation strategies.

Besides, the Eagles are playing Jared Goff in Detroit in Week 1.

The defense will have lots of chances to absorb its mistakes.