Heat, Humidity Tests Eagles: "Fatigue Makes Cowards Of Us All"

PHILADELPHIA – The past two days weren’t exactly ideal weather days for the Eagles to break out the heavy equipment. It began Monday with shoulder pads, then full pads went on Tuesday. Both days were in the high 90s with searing humidity. The weather was so extreme that the Eagles moved Tuesday’s practice up by an hour, from 10 to 9 a.m.

Leave it to Jalen Hurts, Eagles quarterback and children’s book author, to put it in perspective with another of his famous T-shirt slogans.

“Overall, I think fatigue makes cowards of us all,” he said after Day 5 ended. Yep. You can run for shade or sweat and keep moving forward. Of course, there were water breaks, but the Eagles kept moving forward.

“It's good for us,” said head coach Nick Sirianni. “We're always cautious of trying to keep the players safe in these conditions, so that's where their preparation with their hydration and different things like that and their conditioning is going to come into play. But this is good for us to be able to practice in this heat. We're going to play in this heat.”

Those September games can indeed be infernos. Then there’s another trip to the west coast of Florida when the Eagles play in Tampa on Sept. 28. Suffice it to say that snow won’t be in the forecast.

“These last two days have been very challenging from a heat standpoint, so everybody collectively has to continue to push through those things,” said Hurts. “Control what you can. I think it was a good test and measure of where we are right now and where we desire to go.”

The heat is a matter of perspective. This is what defensive coordinator Vic Fangio thought of the soaring temperatures and sticky humidity.

“It's not hot today,” he said on Tuesday. “That's a mindset. We're going to play some hot games in September, and if you cave to a hot day in training camp, we're in trouble.”