The Saints aren’t exactly swallowing five eggs for breakfast, but they are adopting some Rocky Balboa techniques for practice—namely wearing boxing gloves for punt returns.

Sean Payton is employing some Mister Miyagi techniques (can’t… stop… cheesy… 70’s and 80’s… sports references…) to get his players operating on some next level shit. Payton told the New Orleans Advocate,

It really forces them to put their body in the correct position to catch the ball…. It’s a way of taking their hands away, keeping their elbows together and really locating the ball with their feet, getting set.

Makes sense to us.

Among the Saints that have been practicing punt returns are Willie Snead, Marcus Murphy, Josh Morgan, Brandin Cooks, and C.J. Spiller. While Jalen Saunders was taking on the top spot last year, he’s been out injured during training, making way for Murphy to impress in preseason games.

Let’s just hope the equipment manager doesn’t hand Daniel-san some buffering sponges before gameday. Or whatever.