Four NFL players found a nice steep hill the other day in Atlanta and put themselves through a ridiculously grueling workout in front of an NFL.com reporter.

One of them was Bucs safety linebacker Jermaine Phillips, the man charged with replacing Derrick Brooks but has yet to play a game at the position.

Joe is impressed. That’s the way to get your name out there entering a contract year, Jermaine. He was joined by Falcons Coy Wire, Thomas Brown and Verron Haynes.

the four players trained on a 60-yard hill that had about a 30-degree slope for a stunning hour and 15 minutes. The players started with agility drills, like broad jumps, shuffles and other plyometric-type work in 15- 20-yard bursts, uphill. Then, they did some crazy short chopping jumps for 5- to 10-yards before running 15-yard sprints up hills.

Launer then set up these orange hurdles that were between 8 inches and a foot high and put the players through a variety of skipping, hopping and sprint movements up and down the hill. By the time they were done, the players were in agony — and they were only mid-way through the process.

The most punishing phase of the workout came when they ran staggered sprints of 30-, 40-, 50- and 60-yards up the hill in allotted times. It was brutal. I was waiting for one of them to puke but I don’t think they had the energy.

Good grief. It’s one thing to work out on a hill. It’s another thing to do it for 90 minutes, as this story claims. Joe hopes this trainer knew what he was doing.

Phillips tried to be encouraging, telling the players they had to look at “The man in the mirror. It was time to make that change.” His sample of Michael Jackson wasn’t that needed, though, because these guys weren’t going to fold.

Joe is lamenting the fact that — even if he wears a white glove every game –all of Phillips’ training won’t help him learn how to react when an offensive lineman is bearing down on him in the running game.

Good luck, Jermaine.