Inside The Catalog Of Eagles' Michael Clay

PHILADELPHIA - It was a pretty clean day for Michael Clay's special teams units during the 37-17 win over Cincinnati this past Sunday. That opened an opportunity to talk bigger picture with one of the better young coordinators in the NFL.

The Eagles' next game is against a wounded Jaguars team and the Jacksonville attrition could force Doug Pederson's team to take a few more chances to try to steal one at Lincoln Financial Field.

Clay was asked if he would be on alert for any potential Jags' shenanigans in the form of added aggressiveness or trick plays.

"I'm always on high alert for that, regardless of if they had injuries or not," Clay said. "It goes back to how much history [Jaguars Special Teams Coordinator] Heath [Farwell] has as a special teams coordinator with fakes."

Clay came armed with his research.

"I know Logan Cooke has thrown a couple fakes when he was with [former Jaguars Special Teams Coordinator Joe DeCamillis] Joe D," Clay noted. "Then I think last year or a couple years ago against New Orleans, he threw a comeback route. So we’ve always got to be hyper-aware for those different situations. Maybe some tidbits.

"I know [Jaguars S Andrew] Wingard may be coming back, their PP [personal protector] from last year, so a veteran guy."

The goal is to be aware in any potential situation.

For us, we’ve just got to make sure we're staying locked in in any of the situations. Whether it's fourth and short and they got a punt out there, maybe they want to run a fake or things of that nature," Clay said. "Or someone that we haven't seen out there is out at the gunner, a little bit of an alert for maybe they're throwing something."

From there Clay delved into Farwell, once a great special teams player in Minnesota and Seattle, and his tendencies as the former linebacker has grown from an assistant special teams coach with the Seahawks and Carolina Panthers to running the third phase in Buffalo and now with Pederson in Jacksonville.

"You always try to keep a catalog of what they've done whether it's going back to when he was a coordinator at Buffalo or the assistant at Seattle," Clay said of Farwell. "You just always try to keep that catalog. ‘All right, he ran this so often in this position.’ I keep a library, so I can look at it last night or this morning, just to see. I can write a note and give these guys, hey, this is something that they did back in the day. We’ve got to be on high alert.

"It’s always cool from a coaching standpoint. You just keep a catalog of what happens. It may spark something that can help out the team in a different situation. Just a catalog throughout the league just helps everybody else out."

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John McMullen is a veteran reporter who has covered the NFL for over two decades. The current NFL insider for JAKIB Media, John is the former NFL Editor for The Sports Network where his syndicated column was featured in over 200 outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Miami Herald. He was also the national NFL columnist for Today's Pigskin as well as FanRag Sports. McMullen has covered the Eagles on a daily basis since 2016, first for ESPN South Jersey and now for Eagles Today on SI.com's FanNation. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube.com. John is also the host of his own show "Extending the Play" on AM1490 in South Jersey and part of 6ABC.com's live postgame show after every Eagles game. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

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