Practice Talk

The Eagles opened a mandatory minicamp today. Everyone was there except for Isaac Sopoaga, who had a death in the family.

We got some good news, as LG Evan Mathis and C Jason Kelce practiced. Mathis was reportedly going to be out until Training Camp so he is ahead of schedule. Kelce has been in and out of practice as he rehabs a torn ACL. There were times when the starting OL was intact, with Jason Peters – Mathis – Kelce – Todd Herremans – Lane Johnson all working together. That is very encouraging. As Daniel Jeremiah said on Twitter today (and Jimmy Bama more than a few times), this gives the Eagles the most athletic OL in the NFL.

The second team was Ed Wang – Allen Barbre – Dallas Reynolds – Danny Watkins – Dennis Kelly. It is kinda funny that most people consider the left side the most important, but the 3 guys on the right side are more likely to make the roster.

Cary Williams and Kenny Phillips were both at practice.

Here are some highlights from PE.com.

We have some excellent notes from:

Jimmy Bama

Sheil Kapadia

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One interesting note from today involved the DL. With Sopoaga out, Antonio Dixon was the starting NT. Clifton Geathers was with the 1’s, ahead of Ced Thornton. I’m not sure what was up with Thornton. He wasn’t on the 2nd DL either. That was Vinny Curry, Bennie Logan and David King.

I’ve written before that Geathers fascinates me due to his size (6-7, 340). He could be one heck of a 5-technique DE.

Logan has played a variety of spots. This is interesting because the coaches want him to be a versatile player during the season. Logan is already learning multiple spots. That will certainly help his case for being active on gamedays. He must show in TC that he can play the spots well, but I think it is encouraging to see him moving around.

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There isn’t much to say about QB. I did see some some good throws from Foles in highlight clips and then the writers remarked about some good passes he made.

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Chip Kelly got frustrated after practice when the media was asking depth chart type questions. Chip stressed that guys are just getting reps. Don’t read too much into it. He told the writers to ask Coach Stout (Jeff Stoutland) about why the OL was using a particular group of players.

I think this is one key point some are missing. I doubt Chip is micro-managing the players right now and telling the assistants who he wants to see where. I get the feeling Chip is letting the assistants put the groupings together as they want them. We do have players working out with the 1st team, 2nd team and so on. These groupings are informal. That’s why I am not making a big deal out of Ced Thornton not being with the starters.

The OTAs are a partial evaluation period, at best. You want to see who knows the playbook, who moves well and who communicates well with his teammates. That’s about all you can really evaluate (minus throwing/catching). This is the time of year to experiment and move players around. See which combinations you like. Maybe you reward a backup for having a good day. We often assume when a player isn’t with the expected group that the player is being demoted. That’s not necessarily the case in minicamps and OTAs. Things do change in TC, when you want to start to build some continuity. I think you can read into moves with more certainty at that point.

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It was announced today that the Eagles will hold joint practices with the Patriots on Aug 6th and 7th. I was up at Lehigh when the Eagles did this with the Bills in the summer of 1998. That was the first hint of how bad Bobby Hoying would be. He threw checkdown pass after checkdown pass. Duce Staley never got so many touches in his life.

Joint practices can be a good thing. By that time, the Eagles will have already had almost 2 weeks worth of practices. Eagles players will be getting tired of going up against other Eagles. Facing new players breaks the monotony. It is also good to see new offenses and defenses. Running your stuff against your stuff can be monotonous, but also it becomes too predictable from a schematic standpoint. Facing a team that will give you different looks is a way to sharpen your players.

On a simplistic level, facing guys in other colored uniforms also seems to get the competitive juices flowing. Anything the coaches can do to make practice a bit different and hopefully more productive is a good thing.

Chip did mention to the media that Bill Belichick called him to ask about the practices. The Pats play at The Linc in a preseason game on the 9th so coming here does make a lot of sense for both teams.

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