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Philadelphia Eagles running back Darren Sproles has been named the NFC Special Teams Player of the Week for NFL Week 3. Sproles earned this honor for his performance in the Eagles' win over the New York Jets. Sproles juked out five defenders over the course of 89 yards to return a Jets punt for a touchdown.
DARREN SPROLES YOU'RE THE MAN pic.twitter.com/3oOfsPw13R
— Tyler Steege (@EaglesFanTalk) September 27, 2015
This honor marks the fifth time in his career that Sproles has won a "Player of the Week" award. Four of the awards have been for special teams while one has been for offense. So just how special is Sproles? Here are some cool stats:
Darren Sproles is the only player in NFL history with 15+ rushing TDs (18), 25+ receiving TDs (27), and 5+ return TDs (6).
— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) September 27, 2015
Since joining @Eagles in 2014, Darren Sproles’ 4 Player of Week Awards are 2nd most in NFL (Aaron Rodgers, 5) pic.twitter.com/4XMBlMh8HR
— Randall Liu (@RLiuNFL) September 30, 2015
Not too bad.
Chip Kelly raved about Sproles' worth ethic earlier this week.
I mean there's one speed with Darren, it doesn't matter. Every time he catches a punt [in practice], he scores a touchdown. Then when he goes out on the field, every time it gets blocked up pretty good, he's going to score a touchdown. There's a very consistent, going back to what we talked about, there's a consistent approach to Darren Sproles. I have talked to our players about it. We point it out all the time as coaches. I've never been around a guy, and I've been around a lot of guys, that practices as consistently as hard as Darren does every single day. In walk- through, we are done telling him to slow down in walk-through, because he's not going to slow down in walk-through. He goes full speed.
Early, you're trying, ‘Hey, you've got to do ‘this’.’ Doesn't matter. If we have a walk-through punt, he's going to catch a punt and run 60 yards with it and try to score a touchdown. The guys we have to stop, to be honest with you, -- and you can ask [P] Donnie Jones, I have stopped Donnie from trying to chase him because I'm afraid Donnie will pull a hamstring. That's just the way [Sproles] is built and the way he's wired.
We always talk about, you sink to your level of training and what you see on Sundays from Darren is what we see every single day, whether it's a walk-through or whether it's a practice. It's an amazing thing to watch. I wish more players would emulate it because it seems like a pretty good formula that's working.