Colt McCoy was practicing his longsnapping skills before the Packers game and then headed to the hospital to see the birth of his second daughter.
Several minutes after media members found out from head coach Jay Gruden that Colt McCoy was the team's emergency longsnapper, the quarterback was rushing out of the team facility for his own kind of emergency.
Just a couple days before the Redskins hosted the Packers on Sunday night football, McCoy's wife, Rachel, visited Lansdowne Hospital to be induced into labor, only shortly before her due date. With the team leaving for Dallas on Wednesday, McCoy didn't want to take any chances missing his second daughter's birth.
McCoy gave his phone to Paul Kelly, the team's director of football operations, during practice just in case the baby came earlier than expected. Following the shortened Friday workout, he showered, changed and booked it to the hospital and welcomed Brooke Lincoln McCoy to the world around 8 p.m. that night.
"Nothing like experiencing the birth of your child," McCoy said. "It's just a miracle, it's a beautiful thing and I'm just happy to have two healthy, happy little girls."
As for Brooke's middle name, McCoy thought it would be fitting, considering their location, to adopt the name of one of his favorite former presidents.
"The Lincoln memorial was one of the first places that we visited and my wife loves that," McCoy said. "I'm a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. I read a lot of his books and biographies. We both liked the name, a little Virginia flair. For our first child we used some family names and Brooke was a family name down the line, thought it would be cool."
Unlike defensive end Chris Baker, who left practice last January during the team's playoff week prep for Green Bay to see the birth of his daughter, McCoy was able to complete the entire session, which may have been important if the team chose not to sign longsnapper Rick Lovato the next day.
Throughout practice, McCoy began honing his skills at snapping the ball to punter Tress Way. As Gruden mentioned in his press conference, McCoy was the most capable player to fill in at the position when needed, something he found out, at first, through a lie when the team was in Richmond, Va.
"They asked me if I could do it in training camp and I told them 'yeah,'" McCoy said. "I just lied right through my teeth cause I'd never done it before, but we went out there and did little try outs. I was the best one. I've kind of practiced it on the side a little bit during special teams and stuff. They'll throw me in occasionally just to see if I'm ready. I was 100 percent, so I must be doing something right."
Lovato ended up playing Sunday night as well as on Thanksgiving, leaving McCoy to worry about just his quarterbacking skills. Following the Cowboys game, McCoy had several teammates and staff members over to the house, just a week after Brooke was born, where Rachel had prepared a belated Thanksgiving meal.
"She's feeling great," McCoy said of his wife. "She cooked, had a couple turkeys and had several guys came through the house, guys who don't have family up here or whatever, some equipment guys and some strength and conditioning guys popped their heads in, got a meal and that was cool. Having those three days off, we got to spend a lot of time with family and Brooke and Sloane, my other daughter, that was good."
