Practice Notes & Analysis

Posted: July 26th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 15 Comments »

I’m not up at Lehigh, but reading the great coverage by Jimmy Bama, Sheil Kapadia, Les Bowen, Roobs, and Geoff Mosher keeps me well informed of what is going on.  Here are some of the key things to take away from Thursday’s practice:

* Brent Celek hurt his knee, but says he’ll be fine.  The Eagles are calling it a minor knee sprain.  This may actually be a blessing in disguise.  The team needs Clay Harbor and Brett Brackett to get all the reps they can.  Each guy got some snaps with the starting offense today.  Brackett even caught a long pass from Michael Vick.  As long as Celek is truly fine, there is nothing to worry about.  Depending on how the guys do, Jeremy Shockey may or may not get a call.

* Derek freaking Landri was running with the 1’s today.  He and Cullen Jenkins (aka CuJo) were the starting DTs.  Landri is probably ahead of Antonio Dixon for now simply because he played so much last year and played so well.  Dixon can still win the job.  You certainly know I’m not going to complain about a world where Landri is starting for the Eagles.  And to think the team dragged their feet about re-signing him.  Thankfully the Football Gods knew it was meant to be and left him in his appointed spot.

* Curtis Marsh is a player that I’ve not written much about this offseason.  I’ve gotten conflicting reports on his progress and didn’t really know what to think.  The Eagles must be happy with him because today they were working him into some key packages.  Nnamdi was lining up on the inside and Marsh took his place at RCB.

Before you go moaning and groaning about the idiocy of Juan Castillo, remember that the Eagles had some success with Nnamdi on TEs last year.  As Sheil Kapadia points out here, he really shut down Jason Witten.  Moving Nnamid around isn’t a bad thing.  The Eagles just need to have good outside CBs beyond that.  DRC is theLCB.  Today, Marsh got snaps at RCB.  He has the size and physicality to work well in the new aggressive, pressing style.

* As for the slot position, Joselio Hanson has the job now.  Nnamdi doesn’t see him losing it, but that’s most likely one veteran player protecting another.  Brandon Boykin was the slot CB on the #2 defense.  He’ll get chances to steal Hanson’s job.  Someone is going to win it.

* DeMeco Ryans told the media today that he wants to show the world that he’s the best LB in the NFL.  Uh, DeMeco…Eagles fans would settle for you being in the top 25 LBs in the NFL.  I don’t think he knows how things have gone here recently.

* Couple of good notes from Bo Wulf, the #2 OL was …

LT King Dunlap – LG Julian Vandervelde – C Dallas Reynolds – RG Mike Gibson – RT Dennis Kelly

Interesting for Kelly to be there at RT over D.J. Jones.  All reports made it sound like Kelly had a rough spring.  Maybe Mudd wants to challenge him.  Maybe he’s just better than the others.  I wrote a bit about Reynolds for PE.com.  Lots of practice squad experience.  Can he win a roster spot?

Wulf also mentioned that Casey Matthews is the backup MLB, which we expected.  Funny, though, that Casey bulked up to play MLB.  Ray Lewis has shed weight to get down to 235.  Lewis wants to be faster so he can cover more ground.

As expected, Brian Rolle and Jamar Chaney are battling it out for the WLB job.  This is a good thing.  I’m clearly biased toward Rolle (my unofficial son), but I won’t complain if Chaney wins the job.  Jamar is a talented player.  He did have 3 picks last year.  Eagles LBs don’t do that very often.  He put up really good numbers at the Combine.  Go watch the DAL/NYG games from 2010 and you’ll see good play and good production.  Last year was a mess, but let’s not re-write history and act like Chaney has nothing going for him.  That’s simply not true.

* OJ Atogwe and Jaiquawn Jarrett were the #2 Safeties today.  Really will be interesting to see how they do when the pads go on.  Atogwe thinks he’s in top form.  I’m not as confident.  I’d love to see him prove me wrong.  I’ll gladly eat my words and wash them down with a small dish of chocolate pudding.

* The Eagles have some coaching interns of interest this year.  RB Correll Buckhalter is here.  Love Buck.  That is one tough dude.  A lot of lazy, unfocused players could learn a world of good from him.  Buck never gave up.

Most important to me is William Fuller.  He’s one of my all time favorite Eagles.  He was a terrific LDE from 1994-1996.  He kicked a lot of butt in those 3 years.  Fuller was talented, but matched that with intensity and effort.  He was sort of the LDE version of Trent Cole.  I hope he likes coaching and makes a go of it.  The football world needs men like William Fuller.

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15 Comments on “Practice Notes & Analysis”

  1. 1 Cliff said at 7:54 PM on July 26th, 2012:

    Buck is actually one of my favorite Eagles. I think tough is an understatement.

  2. 2 P_P_K said at 2:50 PM on July 27th, 2012:

    Agreed. Remember how he came back when everyone thought he was done, twice!

    Does anyone know what positions he is coaching?

  3. 3 Brett Smith said at 3:11 PM on July 27th, 2012:

    I always remember him flying through the air to score six against Miami.

    Loved Buck. Great Eagle. Him and Landri should talk about how great they are.

  4. 4 Cliff said at 7:43 PM on July 27th, 2012:

    I always remember that short pass Buck turned in to a 60 yard reception when we destroyed Dallas a few years ago.

  5. 5 bdbd20 said at 8:17 PM on July 26th, 2012:

    Good point on Fuller. Very underrated. After we lost Reggie, it seemed like the world was against us. Fuller did an excellent job of keeping the defense near the top of the league.

    It couldn’t have been easy to step into that situation.

  6. 6 SebastianAubrey said at 8:18 PM on July 26th, 2012:

    Yeah man love Buck too. My buddy and I go to a Husker game every year. My first was his last year at Nebraska. I was so jacked the Eagles picked him. A lot of people can learn something from that dude.

  7. 7 philiafan14364 said at 8:47 PM on July 26th, 2012:

    No Brandon Washington?

  8. 8 the guy said at 10:21 PM on July 26th, 2012:

    RE: DeMeco Ryans

    Forget top 25, I just want the Eagles to have a starting linebacker that doesn’t make me throw things at the TV. It got really expensive last year.

  9. 9 aerochrome2 said at 8:50 AM on July 27th, 2012:

    Throwing things at my TV is one cliche I actually engage in. Sometimes the eagles make it just so hard to be civilized.

    (after the game where we lost on the 63 yard field goal to a kicker who had already missed 3 or4 under 35 yds in that same game, I threw the pen I was writing my homework with; it exploded, ink got over the tv, laptop, roommates bed, end everywhere else.) Oops.

  10. 10 Mac said at 9:18 AM on July 27th, 2012:

    After about my 3rd broken SNES controller as a teenager, I finally stopped throwing things in response to bad things happening on the TV. haha

  11. 11 TheRogerPodacter said at 11:34 AM on July 27th, 2012:

    LOL same way i learned hahaha

  12. 12 Kevin_aka_RC said at 9:26 AM on July 27th, 2012:

    If Bowles can get Marsh to be ‘average’. Not good, but average, we’ll have a really good defense. That allows us to play Nnamdi inside if we want. Marsh should be fast enough to not need too much help over the top. It opens up the playbook. If he’s not average, Nnamdi has to stay outside.

    I honestly think Boykin can beat out Hanson though.

  13. 13 Mac said at 10:04 AM on July 27th, 2012:

    I wonder if Marsh doesn’t show enough progress and they keep Hanson on the roster, if they’d give Boykin a look outside.

  14. 14 A_T_G said at 1:03 AM on July 28th, 2012:

    I am really hoping Boykin wins the slot job. Nothing against Hanson, but it would help us in the numbers game. We could keep Brown and Polk or an extra safety.

  15. 15 Jack Bauer said at 11:30 AM on July 27th, 2012:

    Can we get a petition going for Philly.com to spare Bowen from ever having to go on camera again?