Head Coach Anthony Lynn was clearly pleased as he walked off the field following Wednesday's minicamp practice at Hoag Performance Center.
It was easy to see why.
While it's been a productive and successful offseason to date, the head coach noted there was a little extra juice during today's session.
That's exactly what Lynn wants to see as the Bolts close out the 2019 offseason.
"It was a good, spirited practice today, as you could tell," the head coach immediately told reporters once it came to an end. "We had some situations in practice today and I thought the guys competed well, they took care of one another and I feel like we got better. It was one of our better practices this offseason so far…. Once you get through the basic installs, you can get into situational football. Seeing some of the decision-making today, I thought was pretty good. Guys did well."
When it comes to decision making, there's perhaps no one better at breaking things down than Philip Rivers. Thus, it's only natural the head coach found a way to laud Rivers' football IQ shortly after breaking down the lively session.
"He's intelligent," Lynn said. "You talk to a lot of great football players and people think they're just athletic and skillful — no. They're intelligent. A lot of guys are in the right place at the right time and that's not an accident. Philip knows where to go with the ball. He gets us in the right protections up front. He gets us in and out of bad plays. He runs the offense like you want the quarterback to."
Thus, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Rivers also felt Wednesday was one of the team's best practices of the entire offseason.
"I thought (it was spirited)," he said. "I think we all know that the offseason is winding down and that you're going to be away for five or six weeks. I thought the energy has been good all offseason, but there was a little more juice today, which was fun."
While Rivers always hopes to win each and every snap, he acknowledged the best practices are when each side of the ball makes their share of the plays. That falls in line with what Lynn has said in recent weeks, and why the Bolts are already champing at the bit to square off in a few weeks come training camp.
"It's great," he said. "You hope there's some back-and-forth. You really hope — and of course, we want to get after them every day in practice and they want to get after us, but you really hope it's not too lopsided. You hope there's some back-and-forth. They have a couple good plays, then we make a play. It's a lot of good versus good. I think we make each other better. We compete, we get after one another, but it's good. When you have our tackles having to block these guys and the skill players covering or trying to get open, it makes you better. I think the cool thing, too, about our guys is that they all interact. It's not just go out there an practice. It's, 'Hey, what did you do here?' or, 'Yeah, I felt you do this.' There is a lot of helping going on, kind of cross-work that's really good."
