Whats up yard. Here is my cousin highlight reel. Check it out.

Whats up yard. Its time to get back in the swing of things. Off season is grinding time and I have my cousin Eric Jackson (CB) training with me in San Diego. He is getting ready for his pro day that's coming up in March and believes he'll run 4.2 in the 40yd. We've been working out together since high school and will push ourselves to the limit! I'll give an update on how Eric is doing with my training sessions.

Despite my sleep issues the first two days, we had a high energy practice yesterday, prob one of our best of da year. Afta practice a lot of the guys went to the spa and relaxed a bit. I just went up and caught up on some sleep. I crashed until about 10, stayed up til 3 and then hit it again until 7:30. My mom gets in today. She's never been outta the country so we'll both be experiencing it together. I was a little worried about her traveling by herself, but she was excited to get here and I'm excited to see her. I'll get a chance to see her after meetings and practice. I'm sure we'll head to London and check out all the sites. I'll send some pictures when we get down there.

My first time out of the country and I'm having trouble with this time change. First night I got about 4 hours and tonight it was 5. I went to bed at 12 and woke at 5. I'm making up for it with little naps, like when we ride to the city it's about 45 minutes to an hour and I'll sleep on the ride there and back, but I need to get back normal fast. Usually I go to bed about 11 and get up at 6:30. We start practice today. Our first meeting is at 8 and then we're on the field at 1:15. I'm hoping we're all up and ready to go when we hit the field. Don't want to be sluggish in practice. We need a good week. Like Coach said earlier to us, this is a business trip. We'll enjoy the sights and everything, but the sole focus is winning. Yesterday was our day off so we did get to the city to get a closer look at Big Ben and the ferris wheel, London Eye and Buckingham Palace and the Tower Bridge. It's been cool just walking around the city with a bunch of the other guys. It's been a little chilly, about 50 yesterday, but the sun was shining and there were a lot of people out. I'll try to get some photos and maybe some video up in the Yard.

What's goin on Yardbarkers? Just stopping by to say hey and share a little video of me at the rookie symposium the other day. As you know, I'm not a rookie, but I was there to hang out with a couple of my new Charger teammates. Plus i had a chance to visit with my ex-teammate from Jackson State, Jaymar Johnson - 6th round pick by the vikings. If you've never heard of it, the rookie symposium is a program that's held every year for all the rookies in the league. It's a good opportunity for them to learn about the kinds of challenges they'll face (financial, personal - everything) now that they're NFL players. Check out the video of me and my new teammates:

How's everyone in the Yard? Cletis "Flash" Gordon here, just working out and getting ready for the season. Saturday usually means a day off, but I spend my weekends doing things to advance my game. I live this. Check me out.

This may sound stupid but New England is good. I picked up my game film Monday and have been watching it ever since. I set up my laptop, grab my notebook to take notes and start the DVD. We're playing against a team that is making history every week. I have really been trying to focus on some of their tendencies, the type of routes they run, some of their formations, just looking for little tips that might help you on any given play. Those little details can make all the difference in preventing big plays and helping you win. Again, this may sound stupid but Randy Moss is a deep threat and stretches the field a lot. Everyone knows that, but when you watch the film over and over you see just how impactful he is to everything they are doing. It really jumps out. He has 23 touchdowns and a lot of catches for 20+ and 40+ yards. We have to keep them from getting the big play to him. His presence opens things up for their other guys and those guys are really good too. Wes Welker is a big run after the catch guy, a YAC guy. The one thing that really jumps out to me watching this film is that New England just does not make mistakes. It really shows on the film. They had a lot of close games at the end of the season and they win those because they don't make the mistakes that the other teams do. They just execute. Normally when you're watching film you see teams go three and out or get a drive going only to have to punt a short time later. Not New England. When you watch them they are constantly marching down the field. It seems like every play works. The last two days have helped me get a feel for what they do. We meet this morning to go over the game plan and then I will really be able to start to visualize what I'd do against certain routes and how to execute my assignments. I'm excited to get going. Flash24

One reason we have won seven games in a row is that our defense has really come together. We got off to a rough start when we were trying to figure each other out. When you get a new coaching staff it takes a little time to get acquainted. Coach Cottrell has done a great job bringing us together. He coaches with emotion and feels games are always going to be won on defense. He wants that pressure every week and expects us to carry it. He prepares us the same way every week and I think that has really helped us. It's routine now. It wasn't at first. We started 1-3 and seemed to be really up and down. We'd win one week and lose the next. Then it all changed with that Ravens game. We really came together and now we lead the league in takeaways and interceptions. I have to say, LT deserves a lot of credit in our turnaround as a defense. He did a pregame speech before the Ravens game and talked about the inner voice that every championship player has. It was really passionate and we all responded. We have won every game since. LT doesn't usually say too much. He lets his play speak for itself, but when he does speak up we all pay close attention. His timing was perfect. He needed to say something because we were so up and down. We lost to Minnesota and then beat the Colts and then lost a close one to Jacksonville. If we had lost to Baltimore who knows where we'd be. He wanted to get our attention and he did. As a defense, we definitely took it in and we've been playing off the wall, getting turnovers and shutting teams down. LT helped us make up our minds that it's now or never.

I'm glad we didn't have a bye week heading into the playoffs. I really do think it hurts more than it helps. When you have momentum and you're winning games like we have been it's much better to keep playing than have a week off. When you get that down time guys seem to get a little too comfortable and it really knocks you off rhythm. I talked to Marlon McCree about that and he said the same thing. When you win six games in a row to finish the season you want to keep it going and the best way to do it is to go straight into the playoffs without a bye. We won a bunch of games last year and had a bye week. I was a little worried that it would knock us off rhythm and sure enough we came out flat against the Patriots. We lost coming out of our bye week in the regular season too. When you're winning you want to keep playing and I know it made a difference this time. That's why we're moving on and heading to Indy. And believe me it was a big win. It was by far the loudest I have ever heard the fans. They were great. The staff, coaches and players were all pumped up. It was a long time coming and you could feel it.