Eagles’ players competitions award right to pick music, parking spots

Last week during Eagles workouts, the team exercised and lifted weights to the sounds of early 2000s hip-hop one day, reggae the next and country music after that.

It was all music lifted right from Eagles center Jason Kelce’s iPod.

And next week, Malcolm Jenkins, Vinny Curry, Alshon Jeffer, Najee Goode and Mychal Kendricks will get specially marked parking spots right in front of the NovaCare Center, plaquered with “reserved for competition winner.”

It’s all part of the Eagles’ newly formed weekly competitions, testing the best linemen, skill position player and big skill position player of every week. The winners of the three categories and ties will be rewarded.

Because in an NFL locker room, nothing is better than heated competition.

“It has worked out so well,” head coach Doug Pederson told the Eagles’ official website. “The guys are talking about it, they’re embracing it and they want to win. I will continue to do it in training camp, where we have competitive periods and the guys can go against each other, within the position groups, or offense against the defense, or however it goes. It creates a spirit of winning. I am really pleased with how it’s going. Every Monday morning we present the winners from the week before and we also have an ongoing points system. You see the guys who have won and, man, it means something to them each week to be a winner among their teammates.”

The team says in addition to parking spots, the rights to the speaker system in the 9,000 square-feet weight room and custom made T-shirts for weekly winners, the player with the most points in mid-June when the team takes its pretraining camp break will earn a WWE-style championship belt.

“It’s a good idea, I think,” Kelce told Eagles.com. “It enforces the competitive nature in guys. You want guys who are competitive, who are going to win, and who are going to do what it takes to beat the other guy. The more players you have on your team like that, the better equipped you’re going to be to fight through adversity on the field and, hopefully, the more games you’re going to win.”