And well he should.

Good post from Kevin Seifert over at the NFC North blog about McCarthy and his decision to practice an extra day this week, even though coaches traditionally take time off the week preceding a Monday Night Football appearance. As Seifert points out, practice will be 15 minutes shorter but there will be four of them.

I think McCarthy is doing the right thing here. He pushed the guys a bit last week and look at the results. There can sometimes be the beginnings of burnout around this time of year, but McCarthy's light training camp and subsequent non-padded regular season practices may have left this team a bit TOO rested and perhaps not battle-tested heading into the first part of the season. It certainly seemed that way against physical teams like the Cowboys and the Buccaneers. It's a good idea now for McCarthy to keep his players running their drills and going through team portions and not have them sitting around in meetings or at home.

As Seifert notes:

Coaches can be tortured by practice schedules and participation this time of year, when the everyday pounding of a season starts taking its toll on players. Rest is important, but too much rest invariably dulls a player's edge. "Mental reps" only take you so far. On the other hand, too much work accelerates a player's weardown factor.

These guys aren't worn down. They're just getting warmed up.