Professor

Philadelphia Eagles

excerpt:

Here is how Max Jean-Gilles answers to the question, How much better of a football player are you now than you were 12 months ago?

"I'm a whole different person now," he says, and then it's time to think about MJG and what we know about him.

A fourth-round draft pick in 2006, Jean-Gilles spent his rookie season developing. Not playing, of course, as the Eagles went with a fivesome all year that played outstanding football. Developing, as in practicing every day and then watching in street clothes on game days.

Nobody outside of the Eagles' inner brain trust really knows about Jean-Gilles. And yet he one of those really intriguing players who could prove to be a brilliant draft-and-develop moves, a mid-round draft pick taken with a pick the Eagles traded to acquire.

Or he could be a player who never amounts to anything at all.

Or he could be something in between.

Whatever the future brings, MJG is taking the necessary steps to be the best he can be. Jean-Gilles has dropped 15 pounds in the off-season, and is down to 355 pounds. He has another 10 lll-bees to go, he says.

OG Max Jean-Gilles: Felt like a spectator at times as a rookie
The rest of Jean-Gilles is absolutely enormous. He is blessed to have a physically-imposing body that, combined with an improvement in his technique, could signal a dramatic step forward for the offensive guard.

"I'm lighter, smarter, just having more fun out there," said Jean-Gilles. "The first time I came up here, my head was like, 'This is too much.' But now everything has slowed down.

"What was hardest was the terminology and the technique we need here. At Georgia, my technique was different than here. It was totally different -- especially in pass protection. At Georgia, we used to chop our feet a lot to get into our set. Here, you keep your feet on the ground at all times. I was chopping for for years and it was kind of hard to break that habit.

"I'm faster in my set now. I'm a whole different person."

Jean-Gilles is an excited young guy, then. He is one of the handful of "selected veterans" taking part in the most recent Eagles mini-camp and Jean-Gilles benefits greatly. He takes a lot of reps. He works on his technique more and more.

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J-Unit

What was he when they drafted him? He was humongous.

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University of Tennessee Lady Vols 2007 National Champions

Professor

I don't honestly remember except that he was humongous

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