The Alex Gibbs Weight Loss Plan

by Dave Choate on Apr 12, 2007 9:48 PM EDT in News

"Everybody's glad that you don't have to be sitting around and stressing about starving yourself all week to make some weigh-in on Friday morning because somebody likes the way it looks on paper," said Forney, who did not disclose his weight but said he typically played between 305-308 under former Falcons coach Dan Reeves and was below 300 pounds under Gibbs and head coach Jim Mora. "They would tell you that you have to weigh 295 so you'd be sitting up Wednesday and Thursday night starving sometimes.

"Sometimes you've got 330-pound, 340-pound [defensive tackles] across from you and as the season goes on, that can weigh on you. You had different guys starving themselves. That's crazy to me. We're not naturally sleek and lean. We were made to be sleeker and leaner."

Wow. I'm not sure I even know where to begin on this. Gibbs had a well-documented hankering for smaller linemen, but I didn't realize he was taking the fat camp approach to promoting this. It seems somehow bizarre to force what are traditionally very heavy men to play under their typical playing weight in order to execute your scheme...but it did work. There's no way we can argue with those results, which is what makes this change to bigger linemen a little iffy. I have enough faith in Pet Rhino & Co. that I think with some bulking up, the same guys can execute the new "flatten the hell out of everyone" scheme well enough. I wonder if we'll hear about this now that Forney has opened the floodgates, but my guess is it stays pretty quiet.

...But starving a 300 pound man? Man, that seems either awfully merciful or awfully cruel.

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