Eagles' Matthews seeing his hard work pay off

There were no cameras in the auditorium at Piscataway (N.J.) High School on a quiet day in June, when Malcolm Jenkins asked Jordan Matthews to speak at his football camp. Matthews didn't have notes or a prepared speech. But he knew what he wanted to say.

Jenkins introduced Matthews as one of the hardest-working players on the Eagles. Matthews had been in those rooms when guest speakers tried to motivate teenagers by telling them they could become whatever they wanted to be. He didn't believe that to be true.

"You can't be whatever you want to be," Matthews said. "You'll be whatever you work to be."

That was the core of Matthews' message during the impromptu speech, and it's fundamental to understanding how he has become the Eagles' No. 1 wide receiver entering the Birds' game on Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. It helped Matthews during a spell this season when he reached the headlines more for his drops than his catches, and it's how Matthews was in position for a 41-yard, game-winning touchdown catch in overtime against the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday.

Matthews is realistic. He's heard stories about how he was once a two-star recruit, and he's told stories about how he had no scholarship offers after his senior year of high school in Alabama and how he was the last player to get an offer in his class at Vanderbilt.

But he's also 6-foot-3 and 212 pounds and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.46 seconds. So he admits he's not a Rudy story, but he also knows that other receivers are big and fast.

"It still goes back to the work," Matthews said.

The part of the speech that stood out to Mark Sanchez was about the sweatpants at lunch.

As a college player at Vanderbilt, Matthews woke before 6 a.m. His first class wasn't until 8, but before class, he caught 200 balls from the Jugs machine and then watched film.

He walked from his dorm to the football facility, and there usually was a morning chill at that hour in Nashville. Matthews dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants. By lunchtime, that was unseasonable attire for the afternoon sun. One day, a friend teased him about the outfit.

"Why are you wearing sweats, bro?" the friend said. "It's 75 degrees outside!"

"Because I didn't get up at the same time you did," Matthews replied.

"I didn't want to be too serious about it, but at the same time, there was a seriousness to what I was saying," Matthews remembered years later. "While you were still asleep dreaming, I was making my dreams come true."

Jonathan Krause, an Eagles practice-squad receiver and Matthews' teammate at Vanderbilt, said Matthews did it from the beginning of his freshman year. And Krause found Matthews to be that same way now with the Eagles, where he has continued a similar morning routine.

"The things he's saying is accurate," said Penn State coach James Franklin, who coached Matthews at Vanderbilt. "A lot of players talk about wanting to be great, but they're not willing to sacrifice the things daily to be great. I think Jordan is a great example of that."

Franklin remembered Matthews' running to the end zone after every catch. Matthews did the same when he arrived in Philadelphia, but he needed to change to adjust to the Eagles' tempo. Franklin tells players there's no secret sauce. There's Jordan Matthews.

"He was the guy I could use as an example to the point that probably pissed some people off, but I could use him as an example - you want to be great, you need to do these things," Franklin said.

A part of the speech that stood out to Jon Dorenbos was Matthews' calling out a teenager in the room for talking while someone else spoke that day.

Matthews told the teenager that if he was another player in the room, he would know he had you beat because you weren't disciplined enough. It captured the room's attention.

"I think discomfort is what makes people great," Matthews said.

The moment brought him back to when he arrived at college. He looked around the Vanderbilt meeting room. These were the players he was competing with for playing time. These were the players who received scholarship offers ahead of him.

"I started watching people," Matthews said. " 'Oh, this person doesn't go to class? That's going to be easy. I can cut his throat in the classroom. . . . This guy doesn't want to work hard in individual drills? That's easy. Morning workouts, this guy wants to be late? I'll be there on time every single day.' You notice little things people don't do. Go beat him."

The challenge comes when the work isn't working. Matthews dropped passes too frequently earlier this season. It hurt the offense. All that time at the Jugs machine - a routine he has continued in Philadelphia - wasn't translating to sure hands in games.

He dropped two passes against Carolina in Week 7. When the Eagles returned to practice, his way to fix it was to keep doing what helped him get to that position in the first place. He did not believe anything needed to change.

"I don't know if I've ever seen anyone work as hard as he did," quarterback Sam Bradford said after the Cowboys game.

The comment seemed like an empty platitude until Bradford shared an example. During a red-zone drill in the Thursday practice leading up to the Dallas game, Matthews dropped a pass. It so vexed him that he insisted on playing every snap for the rest of practice. He even played scout team. He didn't come out for the remainder of practice.

"I don't know if I've ever seen a starting wide receiver do that," Bradford said. "I think everyone on our team saw the way that he worked."

A slump can test a player's work ethic, Eagles coach Chip Kelly said. He called Matthews "tireless in terms of his ability to work." He fits the profile of Kelly's desire to have players "sink to your level of training" instead of rising to an occasion.

"There's only one way to put it behind you: Go work," Matthews said.

The message Malcolm Jenkins wanted Matthews to get across was about the edge that Matthews carried. Jenkins' locker is next to Matthews', and he saw that edge in Matthews' rookie season. He sees it this year.

"People like that are special," Jenkins said. "You don't see them all the time."

That 40-yard dash time he ran at the combine? He wasn't that fast when he arrived at college. Franklin remembered Matthews building leg strength and sprinting to become fractions of a second faster.

The SEC receiving records and that invitation to the NFL draft in New York? That was just the kid from Alabama trying to prove he could play at Alabama A&M or Jacksonville State or Faulkner.

"You hear great players - all-time greats - and they've been in interviews where they say stuff like that or a special where they rattle something off like that," Sanchez said. "The way he was talking, he doesn't even know how mature he is. He doesn't even realize it yet. He's still scratching the surface. . . . Seeing him make the speech, it was like - that's why. That's why he's going to be so good."

After the game-winning touchdown against Dallas, Matthews said he simply did his job. It's why he caught those passes in the morning at Vanderbilt. It's why he goes early to the NovaCare Complex to do the same.

"I'm not going to start sleeping in," Matthews said. "We're going to continue to do the same thing over and over again."

That same message was delivered in a Piscataway auditorium in June. A top receiver who catches a game-winning touchdown pass on national television against the Cowboys is not what Matthews wanted to be. It's what Matthews worked to be.

"I'm going to go out there and do that this week, next week, all the way for the next 20 years in this league, hopefully," Matthews said.

zberman@phillynews.com

@ZBerm