Brian Baldinger discusses Eagles QB Carson Wentz. Photo by Andy Lewis / contrastphotography.com

It’s mid-July. The temperatures are soaring towards triple digits. And the NFL world is on one united getaway vacation. Coaches, enamored by their own coaches speak, always tell their staff and the players to get away.
Get far away. Clear the head. Take a break. The proverbial calm before the storm.
Heck, I just jetted in from Paris. A few Springsteen concerts. Summer nights on the Champs-Elysées, the climb up the stairs of Notre-Dame. A stroll through the Louvre admiring some work of the great artists. A midday refreshment at one of the thousand of cafe’s watching tourists like me admiring the great sights of the city of Lights.
Made me think what Doug Pederson is doing during his first vacation to get away from-it-all.
I am sure he is with the wife and kids at a summer lodge tucked away from it all. Perhaps some early morning hunting, or a round or two at his buddies golf course.
But while he may be away pretending to enjoy his final days of freedom before the 18 hour days fire up, mentally he hasn’t left the NovaCare facility. Most coaches never do.
I write this article this month putting myself in Coach P’s shoes wondering how I can turn this Eagle Franchise around after 83 years and one championship banner 55 long years ago.
I don’t believe the talent is supreme. There are glaring holes in many parts of this team — I always maintain that the difference in the NFL more than any other sport — is coaching. Players come and go but great coaches are exceedingly difficult to find.
If I was coach P, these are the notes to myself that would be rattling around in my head today. Exactly eight weeks from tonight Coach P. will make his first Saturday night speech to the team hours before their home opener September 11, at Lincoln Financial Field.
I would say these five things everyday, all day, until they become a conditional stimulus from Pavlov’s Dogs Classical Conditioning Experiment. These following five things, if executed, can win the NFC EAST. I PROMISE!!!
1. Effort. No one can out effort the Eagles this season. Its cliche’ but it is so true. And it isn’t always easy. But I would coach a players’ loaf as hard as I would coach the final goal line play to win a game. And it starts with Cox, Peters, Jenkins and Ertz. The Eagles best and highest paid players. No one skates by. Bring out some old footage of Dawkins transforming himself into the ultimate football predator each and every game he strapped it up. Talent alone isn’t going to win the NFC EAST. Every team is flawed. The team that plays the hardest for 16 games is winning this division.
2. The turnovers are OVER! The Eagles, dubiously, have lead the league in turnovers over the past 2 seasons with a whopping 67. The next worst team during this span is Indy with 61. In contrast the Patriots have turned it over the fewest, committing only 27 in two years. The promising news is that Coach P’s Chiefs turned it over only 32 times during this span. So he understands its importance. One per game is a result that the Eagles could live with and it would go a long long ways to grabbing a shot at a division title. The Redskins went from turning the ball over 31 times in 2014 to a respectable 22 times under first year head coach Jay Gruden. No stat is more pressing in trying to win football games and it has to be drilled by its head coach every single day.
3. Football is not a contact sport. Heck there is contact in basketball, hockey, lacrosse, and even in baseball. Football is a VIOLENT sport. And it has to be played violently. As much as the rule changes have altered the way the game is taught and officiated over the past decade it will always be VIOLENT. The Eagles have not played the game violently since the passing of Jim Johnson. That style has to return. Jim Schwartz will get them cranked up on defense but its got to be all over the field. When was the last time you can remember a skilled offensive player putting the lights out on a defensive player? Violent hitting changes the game.
4. Winning football teams commit fewer errors. Assignment errors. The errors of omission that get your quarterback hit. The coverage that is blown that results in easy touchdowns. If Mychal Kendricks has the running back in man coverage and he cannot let the back cross his face in space then he can’t be beat like he was last year. Coaching, teaching, demanding assignment perfection starts with Coach P.
5. The best hire that Chip Kelley ever made was special team coordinator, Dave Fipp. He has won the coach of the year. While Eagles have been good, they can be great and have to set very high goals to be the best special team units in the league. For years the Seattle Seahawks have used their 2 great safeties, Thomas and Chancellor to cover kickoffs and in the last 4 years they have not allowed a kickoff return for a touchdown. There will be a kicking challenge between Caleb Sturgis and Cody Parkey. May the best man win. When the Eagles went to Foxborough and knocked off the undefeated Patriots last season they returned a kick for a touchdown and blocked a punt for a touchdown. Rarely does a team ever lose a game when 2 special team touchdowns are scored.
The emphasis on these 5 categories should be injected into the subconscious brains of the entire Eagle Organization. They have control over all 5 categories every day.
It is a blueprint for success.
I hope Coach P. is enjoying his final days before this season cranks up, but I know he truly isn’t. Anyone can list the approach that I laid out in the above. Gettimg 53 players come September 11th to execute the plan is another story.
Therein lies the challenge. And its a challenge that is keeping Doug Pedersen from probably enjoying the last round of golf, or final hunting session. Or maybe the burgers are getting a little burnt from daydreaming about the execution of Baldy’s 5 pronged formula for Eagle success in 2016. *