If you have been able to get out and watch practices in years past and this year, you can really see that things are different. A lot of us, myself included, were afraid in the beginning that Mike Munchak would do things just like Jeff Fisher did, but so far that couldn't be any further from the truth. The practices are a lot more up-tempo than they were under Fisher, and they have spent a lot more time in full pads than in years past.
Here is what Munch had to say about the changes after last night's practice:
Just how they respond to it. You’re not tackling, but you’re doing everything else. It’s kind of a mindset that we’re going to come out here and get better at something. You could tell from some of the periods that the defense had the hand early, making some plays on us, and the offense held on there a few plays; just changing the periods around, making them think a lot, and putting them in a lot of stressful situations. We started the practice with five shots on fourth-down to get in the end zone and score with the first and second teams. There were 10 plays to start practice where they were competing to win the game. Then, we went right into a run period to get more of a grind of 15 runs in a row with all different personnel packages. The defense played a lot of different fronts, so they had to respond to the 46, the 4-3 stuff. I think you move into a four-minute drive, do a little four-minute, then the defense stops them and the offense goes into the two-minute. It was kind of fun just doing a lot of different things that we were able to cover in this practice. As the practice went on, you saw the competition levels taken up, so I think it was a good workout for them.