NFL

Andy Reid Destroys His Eagles Players Over Tying the Lowly Bengals

Posted Nov 21, 2008 3:30PM By Matt Snyder (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Eagles, NFC East, NFL Coaching, NFL Real Talk

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You can tell he has it in him. Any man that big who acts like a teddy bear most of the time surely has some innate ability to let loose like a ferocious grizzly. This week, Andy Reid did just that to his Eagles, in a morning meeting.
Reid lit into the team Wednesday at the morning meeting and let everyone know that not only was the season on the line, there were jobs on the line. "I guess he felt his normal mild-mannered self wasn't working," linebacker Omar Gaither said. "With Coach Reid, when the volume goes up and he starts turning red, you start paying a little more attention."
I've experienced stuff like this before. Coaches who rarely yell get a huge reaction when they do. It's like, "wow, he's really pissed at us," and then you want to make that anger disappear by performing better. On the flipside, when you have some maniac yelling at you every single play, you learn to just stop listening and nothing he says carries value anymore.

So, yeah, I think Reid got the attention of his players.

Will it really help, though? These guys are professional athletes who shouldn't need an extra nudge to go out and do their job. Well, the players seem to have responded internally. Reports state that Brian Dawkins led a players-only closed-door meeting immediately following Reid's tirade.
"Any time you go out and have a tie with a 1-8 team, he's not going to be happy about it," safety Quintin Mikell said. "That's what we need [to hear]. We need to get back to playing football and stop worrying about the B.S. that we can't control. Just play football. Sometimes you've just got to say what's on your mind, and he did that."

"I think the message was received," running back Brian Westbrook said.
It does sound like the players will respond positively, but they have a tall order this weekend when they visit the Ravens in Baltimore. I'll tell you this, if I was a player on the team, I'd step it up. You don't want to see the temper tantrum capabilities a man of Reid's stature possesses.

(H/T PFT)

Tags: andy+reid, AndyReid, brian+dawkins, BrianDawkins

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