LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The season premiere of Bears “Hard Knocks” on Tuesday featured many memorable moments, like Theo Benedet’s scantily–clad singing or Nick Saban’s advice for head coach Matt Eberflus. The best part of practice, however, was a fun quarterback drill where Bears players repped getting down on a slip-n-slide.
Bears quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph was the man who thought of bringing that drill to Bears camp and ran the idea by head coach Matt Eberflus, who gave it the green light.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Chicago sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
“It’s hard to practice that on the grass,” Joseph said. “ It’s just getting them to understand that you’ve got to protect yourself in this business, in this league, and knowing how to do it is a really important thing.”
Joseph learned the drill when he was playing college ball at McNeese State. He had a baseball background, so sliding wasn’t a foreign concept for him, but he still found value in the drill. Joseph got a chance to go through the drill again with the Bears, this time as a coach, but that was not necessarily by design.
“I got challenged,” Joseph said. “One of the guys, I can’t remember who it was, somebody said ‘I think a coach needs to go first.’ Once I got challenged it was like, ‘Let’s go get it, now.’ You gotta lead. You gotta lead sometimes.”
The slip-n-slide might simply look like a way to break up the grueling stretches of training camp or cool off in the summer heat, and Joseph acknowledges that’s part of what makes it a good drill. He maintains that it’s directly applicable to the field, too.
NFL
“It showed up in the (Hall of Fame) game,” Joseph said. “(Brett Rypien) got a chance, he slid in the game. So it was fun for those guys, but at the same time it was really serious to make sure they protect themselves and preserve themselves for the team and for their livelihood.”
There will be five episodes of “Hard Knocks” this season, which will follow the Bears throughout training camp and the preseason. New episodes debut every Tuesday.