Football coaches are incredible weirdos. On this we can all agree. Cowboys tight ends coach, Mike Pope might be the weirdest of the weird.
On Tuesday, Pope had Jason Witten and the rest of the Dallas tight ends catching passes shirtless as he threw ice water all over them. Discussing his Top 5 favorite weird coaching techniques, Pope had this to say of the ice water technique:
"I've got one that I did [Tuesday], where at the end of practice, I have somebody fire a ball at them. I collect all the ice water out of the Gatorade bins, and they take their shirts off, and just as the ball gets to them, I hit them in the lower part of their back with that ice water and see if they concentrate and catch that ball, because, I mean, it's cold."
He's not wrong! Ice water is definitely cold.
On Wednesday, Pope reached into his weirdo grab bag and pulled out some sacks to put over his tight ends' heads.
Today,he added a couple more peculiar drills to the repertoire: first, he fired passes at hem while they ran to and fro with see-through bags over their heads (the bags almost certainly reduced visibility). Later, he had them take turns carrying each other back and forth for 10-yard intervals.
All this weirdness might actually work, though. Before he signed on with the Cowboys this year, he had two stints with Giants,the first dating back all the way back to the Bill Parcells glory days. Mark Bavarro, Howard Cross, and Jeremy Shockey all found success under Pope and he had them doing equally weird things like practicing in goggles.
"I would say he got the information to the players," Parcells said. "He was good, always took the time after practice to work with them and to work on special things.
Parcells, also not wrong.
h/t Johnny
Hot routes: Cowboys tight ends coach keeps practices fresh [Star-Telegram]