WIL

It could have been something said by Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political thinker and historian from the 1800s who was best known for analyzing improved living standards and social conditions of individuals.

So when Eagles coach Chip Kelly was asked if he wants the team to run itself, he replied: "It just depends on what model of organization you want. Do you want blind obedience or informed acquiescence or self-governance? If you have self-governance, I think the individuals have more invested in what's going on because they have a say, and they have a stake in it."

Kelly said the Eagles aren't quite there yet, but there were several instances where it was evident during the two months of offseason workouts, which culminated this past week with the mandatory minicamp. The Eagles, like the rest of the NFL, are on their break until training camp begins July 25.

The assistant coaches ran their position drills, while Kelly went around from position to position overseeing things.

There was running backs coach Duce Staley using a rectangular contraption that measured about 5-foot-6, forcing the runners to dart in and out of them as they carried the ball.

The purpose?

"When you run too high, that's when you can get stopped by an arm tackle," running back Darren Sproles said. "If you stay low, you can get through the hole."

Sproles has spent eight seasons in the NFL, with San Diego, then New Orleans, on teams that were known for offense. He said he never ran a drill like that before. Sproles is 5-6, as tall as the contraption, so he was jokingly asked if he has an advantage in the drill.

"I know, huh?" he replied with a laugh.

There was quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave using a catcher's mitt on each hand during individual drills to catch passes from the quarterbacks. There was a method to this madness, too.

"The purpose of that is so those guys can really throw the ball full speed," Musgrave said. "At times, when you're playing catch with an older coach or your dad, you take a little bit off the football because you don't want to bang up their hands.

"I want those guys to feel like they can really cut it loose and get the most out of each and every rep even when we're in our individual drills. When you do practice, you want to practice game speed. There's no reason to do something if you're not going to do it like you're going to do it on game day."

There were other such drills, such as the two garbage cans stacked on top of each other, with a third on top of them angled toward the quarterbacks, who are about 20 yards away. That enables the quarterbacks to test their accuracy as they drop back to pass.

Will that portend who starts at quarterback? Probably not. But from the practices open to the media, it was clear that Nick Foles was the most accurate. So if Foles threads a pass in between two defenders to rookie Jordan Matthews in the end zone on the last play of the game, maybe those garbage cans will have had something to do with it.

Kelly could have gotten the idea of self-governance from a recent HOW Report that found self-governance is the ideal business model. The report, written about in Forbes Magazine, detailed a statistical analysis of roughly 2 million observations by 36,000 employees in 18 countries. Companies that emphasized self-governance scored the highest on every one of the 14 performance outcomes evaluated by the study. Some of those categories included innovation, loyalty, and taking "beneficial risks."

But the study found that only 1 in 30 companies meet the standards of self-governance. If that ratio holds true for the NFL, then just one of the 32 teams is run that way.

A good guess for that team would be the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks under head coach Pete Carroll, who is known for giving his players and assistants autonomy while promoting a collegiate type of atmosphere.

For his part, Kelly said he didn't want so-called "yes men" when he hired his assistant coaches. He wanted the assistants to challenge him, to present him with different ideas.

"I don't think this organization is going to work if you have to micromanage individual position coaches," Kelly said. "I didn't want someone where I always had to constantly look over and say, 'What drill is he doing now? Why is he doing that?' We have a bunch of guys who are great teachers and really add to the overall team."

We'll find out soon enough if it actually works.

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com.