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PHILADELPHIA -- It's 6:50 a.m. on a Monday. Dusk recently gave way to morning light. Traffic is just beginning to clog the Schuylkill Expressway. The backup on the Walt Whitman Bridge is in its early stages.
Jamaal Jackson is late for work.
The buzzer on his alarm sounded 45 minutes earlier, affording the Eagles offensive lineman barely enough time to get dressed and bolt from his New Jersey home and make it to Center City by 6:50.
He hurries through the doors of the 12th Street Gym a smidgen after 7 and heads for the locker room. Chuck Morris is there by then. Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, armed with a wristwatch, Morris wastes no more time getting to business.
They have just an hour together, but Morris, a personal trainer Jackson hired in February, has the entire routine planned to the last second. Jackson's tardiness, even by just a few minutes, has shifted Morris into high gear.
Jackson follows Morris up two flights of stairs and plops onto an exercise bike. As Jackson pedals freely, Morris increases resistance, forcing Jackson to exert more energy. About 30 seconds in, Morris places a 30-pound dumbbell in each of Jackson's hands. The still-groggy giant is asked to hoist each weight over his head 10 times, all while steadily pedaling.
A look of exasperation comes across Jackson's face.
"We haven't done this in a couple of weeks," Jackson said.
This is how most of the session plays out -- Morris meticulously working the fifth-year Eagles center through rigorous lifting drills and Jackson gnarling his face into painful grimaces and spitting wisecracks.
Biceps curls, chest presses, situps. It takes about 10 minutes for the first beads of sweat to collect on Jackson's forehead. Soon enough, perspiration covers most of his body, trickling down the faces of his twin daughters, Ava and Amaya, whose images are tattooed on his left biceps.
After the 60th minute, he's sprawled out on a rubber mat, huffing and puffing, staring skyward. On the walk back to the locker room, Morris reassures Jackson of his decision to make this daily sacrifice.
"I'm on your team," Morris said.
"No," Jackson said, "you're not."
What brought the former Delaware State standout to this point? An unhealthy cocktail of fear and motivation.
Food for thought
With the NFL draft six days away, Jackson is convinced Eagles coach Andy Reid, the kahuna on all draft decisions, is ripe to pluck Jackson's successor, or at least someone capable of pushing for his job.
And since he still accepts a sizable portion of blame for last season's 8-8 record and playoff absence, Jackson figured he'd better be ready for the fight.
That began, he said, with wholesale changes in diet and exercise to better tune his 6-foot-4 physique, which was listed at 330 pounds last season.
"I was always working out and running and doing stuff I needed to do to get in shape," he said. "But that's only 50 percent of it. The other 50 comes from dieting and eating right. That's one thing I didn't do [last offseason]. I'd work out hard in the afternoon, and then get, like, a sundae or something."
These days, Jackson restricts himself to mostly organic food and water. No more fatty burgers, candy bars or late-night snacks. Gone is the ginger ale he used to gulp by the case.
Breakfast consists of egg whites, oatmeal, a banana and a protein shake. For lunch, tuna -- hold the mayo -- with brown rice, raspberries, bananas and water. Dinner is fish or chicken with green vegetables and another protein shake.
Snacks? Maybe some nuts or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Jackson estimated his caloric intake last year at about 7,000 per day. Now, he's around 2,500 -- except for the occasional submission to temptations.
"I have to admit, sometimes I do cheat," he said. "Everybody cheats, but I got to come to the point where cheating is not allowed. I'm trying to deal with that."
The other day, his cousin reached inside the refrigerator to retrieve a Reese's peanut butter cup.
"I was like, 'Oh ... my ... god,' " Jackson said. "I just turned the other way."
A punishing introduction
Jackson is Morris' third project from the Eagles. The Army veteran's strict training program helped left tackle William Thomas return to starting form two years ago after Thomas underwent lower back surgery and put former fullback Thomas Tapeh back on the field after Tapeh sustained a major hip injury in the 2005 preseason.
Cowboys running back Marion Barber, who emerged last season as Dallas' featured runner, also is a former Morris client.
Morris subjects all trainees to the same first-day exam, a series of exhausting drills designed to challenge an athlete's threshold. There's no such thing as a passing grade.
"The first day is a day of hell," Morris said. "When the test is over, they're generally on the floor, trying to figure out what in the world just happened."
Jackson had second thoughts about his decision to work with Morris after their first session.
"First day, I quit. It was that rough," Jackson said. "I physically thought I was going to die. I hadn't felt like that in so long. I was on the ground. I couldn't get up. I sat down for like 20 minutes. No, I laid there for 20 minutes. Then, after the test, when he told me he had trained Marion Barber and he threw up, I was like, 'What am I getting into?' "
It didn't take long for results to show. Jackson shed 15 pounds and recently weighed in at 320. Eight weeks after having his body quit on him, Jackson retook the test and scored higher in every category.
"He succeeded by leaps and bounds," Morris said.
People have noticed his new physique. It's kind of hard not to when you're as imposing as Jackson.
"Even my mom said that, but I see her, like, every two, three months," Jackson said. "I still feel as though I haven't changed."
A job unprotected
Jackson plans to add 10 pounds of muscle before training camp begins in late July, when he expects to battle for his job at Lehigh University. Right now, the Eagles have just one reserve center -- third-year pro Nick Cole, who, like Jackson, wasn't drafted and signed as a rookie free agent. Cole, used sparingly, has never started an NFL game.
Regardless, Jackson still is haunted by last season's letdowns, and despite the seven-year contract extension he signed in 2006 on the eve of training camp -- a deal that led to incumbent center Hank Fraley being traded to Cleveland -- Jackson believes he can lose the job as quickly as he earned it.
All it takes is one hungry, dedicated prospect with the same shoulder chip Jackson carried in 2003, when all 32 teams bypassed him in the draft. Maybe it will be Cole. Maybe it will be someone Reid drafts next weekend.
"I could go out tomorrow and break my ankle. I won't be here next year," Jackson said. "They can draft somebody and it can be, 'Well, let's just throw him in there.' Like they did with me."
Taking responsibility
Blame for the offensive line's struggles last season is a shared responsibility. Left guard Todd Herremans battled knee soreness and missed some team meetings, which led to disciplinary action. Pro Bowl right guard Shawn Andrews was hampered early by an ankle injury and didn't play at an elite level until halfway through the season.
Right tackle Jon Runyan took an embarrassing tumble in a whirlpool tub and fractured his tailbone, limiting his effectiveness. Thomas, the blindside protection for quarterback Donovan McNabb, couldn't suit up for a crucial NFC East showdown against the Giants at Giants Stadium.
Horrific memories of that October game -- the Giants sacked McNabb 12 times, tying an NFL record -- are fresh in Jackson's mind. Fill-in left tackle Winston Justice, who mirrored a red carpet that night, took the fans' and media's abuse after the 16-3 loss. But Jackson, now seven months removed, shouldered more responsibility for the meltdown.
"If you look at the game, not all the mistakes came from the left side," he said. "One guy got most of the attention but we took that collectively. It was more my fault than Winston's fault. It was more our fault as a unit than it was Winston's fault."
Jackson recalled a sack he allowed to Justin Tuck in the first quarter, the first of New York's 12 and Tuck's two. Tuck had lined up across from Jackson, worked a move to the outside but spun quickly back inside. Jackson couldn't regain his footing in time and watched Tuck breeze by before taking down McNabb.
That's when the alarm sounded.
"I tried to recover, but I couldn't recover," Jackson said, "which was a lack of not being in better shape."
Those memories help bring Jackson to the 12th Street Gym almost every morning, Monday to Friday, and fuel his motivation. He's still the big guy from the little school nobody wanted on draft day, still the fighter who overcame two triceps tears to edge Fraley for the starting job. But he's not the underdog anymore, not looking up at someone else on the depth chart.
Instead, he looks behind -- at last season's disappointments, at past struggles to control his weight and for the person who's aiming to steal his job.
These are thoughts that race through his mind 10 minutes before 7 each morning, on an exercise bike, while curling dumbbells. And every time he passes on ginger ale and Snickers bars for bananas and a bottled water.
"You've got to use something," Jackson said. "I'm just trying to go somewhere I've never been, so I'm doing something I've never done."
Jamaal Jackson is late for work.
The buzzer on his alarm sounded 45 minutes earlier, affording the Eagles offensive lineman barely enough time to get dressed and bolt from his New Jersey home and make it to Center City by 6:50.
He hurries through the doors of the 12th Street Gym a smidgen after 7 and heads for the locker room. Chuck Morris is there by then. Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, armed with a wristwatch, Morris wastes no more time getting to business.
They have just an hour together, but Morris, a personal trainer Jackson hired in February, has the entire routine planned to the last second. Jackson's tardiness, even by just a few minutes, has shifted Morris into high gear.
Jackson follows Morris up two flights of stairs and plops onto an exercise bike. As Jackson pedals freely, Morris increases resistance, forcing Jackson to exert more energy. About 30 seconds in, Morris places a 30-pound dumbbell in each of Jackson's hands. The still-groggy giant is asked to hoist each weight over his head 10 times, all while steadily pedaling.
A look of exasperation comes across Jackson's face.
"We haven't done this in a couple of weeks," Jackson said.
This is how most of the session plays out -- Morris meticulously working the fifth-year Eagles center through rigorous lifting drills and Jackson gnarling his face into painful grimaces and spitting wisecracks.
Biceps curls, chest presses, situps. It takes about 10 minutes for the first beads of sweat to collect on Jackson's forehead. Soon enough, perspiration covers most of his body, trickling down the faces of his twin daughters, Ava and Amaya, whose images are tattooed on his left biceps.
After the 60th minute, he's sprawled out on a rubber mat, huffing and puffing, staring skyward. On the walk back to the locker room, Morris reassures Jackson of his decision to make this daily sacrifice.
"I'm on your team," Morris said.
"No," Jackson said, "you're not."
What brought the former Delaware State standout to this point? An unhealthy cocktail of fear and motivation.
Food for thought
With the NFL draft six days away, Jackson is convinced Eagles coach Andy Reid, the kahuna on all draft decisions, is ripe to pluck Jackson's successor, or at least someone capable of pushing for his job.
And since he still accepts a sizable portion of blame for last season's 8-8 record and playoff absence, Jackson figured he'd better be ready for the fight.
That began, he said, with wholesale changes in diet and exercise to better tune his 6-foot-4 physique, which was listed at 330 pounds last season.
"I was always working out and running and doing stuff I needed to do to get in shape," he said. "But that's only 50 percent of it. The other 50 comes from dieting and eating right. That's one thing I didn't do [last offseason]. I'd work out hard in the afternoon, and then get, like, a sundae or something."
These days, Jackson restricts himself to mostly organic food and water. No more fatty burgers, candy bars or late-night snacks. Gone is the ginger ale he used to gulp by the case.
Breakfast consists of egg whites, oatmeal, a banana and a protein shake. For lunch, tuna -- hold the mayo -- with brown rice, raspberries, bananas and water. Dinner is fish or chicken with green vegetables and another protein shake.
Snacks? Maybe some nuts or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Jackson estimated his caloric intake last year at about 7,000 per day. Now, he's around 2,500 -- except for the occasional submission to temptations.
"I have to admit, sometimes I do cheat," he said. "Everybody cheats, but I got to come to the point where cheating is not allowed. I'm trying to deal with that."
The other day, his cousin reached inside the refrigerator to retrieve a Reese's peanut butter cup.
"I was like, 'Oh ... my ... god,' " Jackson said. "I just turned the other way."
A punishing introduction
Jackson is Morris' third project from the Eagles. The Army veteran's strict training program helped left tackle William Thomas return to starting form two years ago after Thomas underwent lower back surgery and put former fullback Thomas Tapeh back on the field after Tapeh sustained a major hip injury in the 2005 preseason.
Cowboys running back Marion Barber, who emerged last season as Dallas' featured runner, also is a former Morris client.
Morris subjects all trainees to the same first-day exam, a series of exhausting drills designed to challenge an athlete's threshold. There's no such thing as a passing grade.
"The first day is a day of hell," Morris said. "When the test is over, they're generally on the floor, trying to figure out what in the world just happened."
Jackson had second thoughts about his decision to work with Morris after their first session.
"First day, I quit. It was that rough," Jackson said. "I physically thought I was going to die. I hadn't felt like that in so long. I was on the ground. I couldn't get up. I sat down for like 20 minutes. No, I laid there for 20 minutes. Then, after the test, when he told me he had trained Marion Barber and he threw up, I was like, 'What am I getting into?' "
It didn't take long for results to show. Jackson shed 15 pounds and recently weighed in at 320. Eight weeks after having his body quit on him, Jackson retook the test and scored higher in every category.
"He succeeded by leaps and bounds," Morris said.
People have noticed his new physique. It's kind of hard not to when you're as imposing as Jackson.
"Even my mom said that, but I see her, like, every two, three months," Jackson said. "I still feel as though I haven't changed."
A job unprotected
Jackson plans to add 10 pounds of muscle before training camp begins in late July, when he expects to battle for his job at Lehigh University. Right now, the Eagles have just one reserve center -- third-year pro Nick Cole, who, like Jackson, wasn't drafted and signed as a rookie free agent. Cole, used sparingly, has never started an NFL game.
Regardless, Jackson still is haunted by last season's letdowns, and despite the seven-year contract extension he signed in 2006 on the eve of training camp -- a deal that led to incumbent center Hank Fraley being traded to Cleveland -- Jackson believes he can lose the job as quickly as he earned it.
All it takes is one hungry, dedicated prospect with the same shoulder chip Jackson carried in 2003, when all 32 teams bypassed him in the draft. Maybe it will be Cole. Maybe it will be someone Reid drafts next weekend.
"I could go out tomorrow and break my ankle. I won't be here next year," Jackson said. "They can draft somebody and it can be, 'Well, let's just throw him in there.' Like they did with me."
Taking responsibility
Blame for the offensive line's struggles last season is a shared responsibility. Left guard Todd Herremans battled knee soreness and missed some team meetings, which led to disciplinary action. Pro Bowl right guard Shawn Andrews was hampered early by an ankle injury and didn't play at an elite level until halfway through the season.
Right tackle Jon Runyan took an embarrassing tumble in a whirlpool tub and fractured his tailbone, limiting his effectiveness. Thomas, the blindside protection for quarterback Donovan McNabb, couldn't suit up for a crucial NFC East showdown against the Giants at Giants Stadium.
Horrific memories of that October game -- the Giants sacked McNabb 12 times, tying an NFL record -- are fresh in Jackson's mind. Fill-in left tackle Winston Justice, who mirrored a red carpet that night, took the fans' and media's abuse after the 16-3 loss. But Jackson, now seven months removed, shouldered more responsibility for the meltdown.
"If you look at the game, not all the mistakes came from the left side," he said. "One guy got most of the attention but we took that collectively. It was more my fault than Winston's fault. It was more our fault as a unit than it was Winston's fault."
Jackson recalled a sack he allowed to Justin Tuck in the first quarter, the first of New York's 12 and Tuck's two. Tuck had lined up across from Jackson, worked a move to the outside but spun quickly back inside. Jackson couldn't regain his footing in time and watched Tuck breeze by before taking down McNabb.
That's when the alarm sounded.
"I tried to recover, but I couldn't recover," Jackson said, "which was a lack of not being in better shape."
Those memories help bring Jackson to the 12th Street Gym almost every morning, Monday to Friday, and fuel his motivation. He's still the big guy from the little school nobody wanted on draft day, still the fighter who overcame two triceps tears to edge Fraley for the starting job. But he's not the underdog anymore, not looking up at someone else on the depth chart.
Instead, he looks behind -- at last season's disappointments, at past struggles to control his weight and for the person who's aiming to steal his job.
These are thoughts that race through his mind 10 minutes before 7 each morning, on an exercise bike, while curling dumbbells. And every time he passes on ginger ale and Snickers bars for bananas and a bottled water.
"You've got to use something," Jackson said. "I'm just trying to go somewhere I've never been, so I'm doing something I've never done."
