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I don’t know if there’s something in the water in Dallas, or if it’s just because it’s Texas, but a lot of strange going in the land of Cowboys right now.* First they became the first team to send out playoff tickets before the season. And now, footage (which is actually from earlier this week) of players practicing shirtless. And wet. Shirtless and wet. If you’re thinking, that’s how I’d like Chase Utley to practice, I am too. But this… is weird.

http://youtu.be/mCKSVjqZCgY&start=80

From FOX Sports:

New tight ends coach Mike Pope has a weird way of making things interesting.

The 72-year-old has more than a few tricks up sleeve. Well, he has 478 to be exact.

A couple of the strangest have been on display the last two days. Pope had the tight ends catching passes shirtless while he hit them with buckets of ice water on Tuesday. After Wednesday’s practice, the group caught passes with what appeared to be white laundry bags over their heads.

“One of the things I really concentrate on teaching and getting them to understand, because they don’t really believe it, is that when the ball comes and something really abnormal happens, they flinch,” Pope said. “They temporarily close their eyes. It’s an instinct. Sometimes it’s uncontrollable. Hitting them with the ice water, they all flinch.

“I told them all, if I bet you your car [that they won’t flinch], they’d all be walking because that ice water hits them and it’s such a shock to their body. Any of those things that you can do to try to distract them is a decent drill.”

Few thoughts:

1) The white laundry bags thing, I feel like, is coming dangerously close to white supremacy.

2) That you, Jer?

3) Shady now owns shirtless men.

4) I’d still like to see Chase Utley practice this way.

*Yeah, yeah– I know they hold camp in (OSX) Oxnard, California. But don’t ruin my shot at the Lone Star State.

H/T to CB super reader (@BriMcL17)