Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

Making Moves & Camp Talk

Posted August 6th, 2023 | 1 Comment »

The Eagles had a quiet summer in terms of roster moves until this weekend. A week of practice, injuries and other factors led to some changes with the bottom of the roster.

Ok, let’s go through the moves.

The Eagles needed help at LB. With Nakobe Dean hurt and Davion Taylor gone, they were down to 4 linebackers.

Nick Morrow
Christian Elliss
Shaun Bradley
Ben VanSumeren

Keep in mind that VanSumeren is a project and isn’t a guy you want on the field a ton. He’s learning the position. The Eagles have a preseason game on Saturday and need bodies to get through that. Beyond depth, Jack and Cunningham offer competition for Morrow, Elliss and even Dean.

Cunningham is 28. He’s got good size at 6-3, 238. He started 66 games in Houston from 2017-2021. He was limited to 6 starts in Tennessee last year.

Jack is 27. He’s 6-1, 244. Jack started 82 games for the Jaguars from 2016-2021. He started 13 games for the Steelers last season.

Nick Sirianni faced both players on a regular basis when he was with the Colts. He thought highly of both of them. The players have the kind of experience the Eagles need in the LB room. We would need a time machine for these to be significant moves, but they do improve the middle of the defense. There is legitimate depth at LB now. Jack and Cunningham will have to battle for roster spots. Neither one of them is guaranteed anything other than an opportunity.

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Josh Andrews is back in Philly. He’s had one of the stranger careers in league history. Andrews is 31 and has played in a total of 9 games. He signed with the Eagles as a UDFA in 2014 and has been on five teams. He must be a fantastic guy because he’s not a fantastic player.

I’m guessing the Eagles signed him after watching Brett Toth struggle with snaps this summer. It went beyond some errors to a guy whose problems affected the entire backup offense. You can’t get much done without functional snaps.

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Josh Sills is back.

I’m not going to get into right or wrong on this. I know some of  you aren’t happy about his return. That certainly is fair. This was a complicated situation.

I’m going to focus on the football side of things. Sills was a UDFA last summer. Here is what I wrote about him last August.

Josh Sills played LG and LT this summer. I thought he showed good potential, but I thought the coaches would prefer Anderson or Awosika for their experience. Instead they went with Sills. He is a more natural tackle than Awosika and I think Anderson was hurt by the presence of Cam Jurgens. That made Sills the better option.

Sills was also the more physical of the trio. He earned a spot on the team. He’s not practiced since January so Sills will be rusty. It will take him some time to get back into football shape. He will have to compete for a spot. He wasn’t so good last summer that’s guaranteed anything. We’ll see if the off-field situation affects his play.

With Tyler Steen showing promise as a backup LT, Sills could focus on playing OG this year.

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Here is Bo Wulf with some praise for Marlon Tuipulotu.

There have been times this summer when Marlon Tuipulotu has looked like the Eagles’ best defensive tackle. That’s obviously unlikely to be the case come the regular season, but his power has become hard to ignore (at one point in one-on-ones, he planted Julian Good-Jones onto the ground). That’s a worthwhile reminder of the “defensive tackles take time to develop” conversation we’ve had regarding expectations this season for Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis.

Tuipulotu has developed slowly. He didn’t do much as a rookie, got better last year and has taken another step forward this season. Tuipulotu has played well this summer. He’s showing a good combination of power and quickness. He could be a key role player this season. It is cool to see how he’s gotten better each year.

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Edge Patrick Johnson has played really well in camp. He injured his ankle a couple of days ago and there were some fears it might be a lengthy injury. Good news.

Glad to hear Johnson won’t be down for an extended time. You hate seeing a guy playing his best football only to have an injury ruin his summer. It sounds like Johnson has played well enough to make the team, but he will have an uphill battle because of the depth at Edge.

Johnson’s ability to play in space and also contribute on STs make him a good role player. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s enough to win a job.

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Nick Sirianni continues to praise RB Trey Sermon. This goes beyond saying nice things about backups. Sirianni talks about Sermon as a player he’s genuinely excited about. As with Johnson, the problem is the depth chart. Sermon is behind Penny-Swift-Gainwell-Scott. If anyone goes down, Sermon is a player the coaches seem to believe in. It will be interesting to see how he does in the preseason games.

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This is not encouraging.

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Brown is a terrific athlete and physical hitter. The key for him is the ability to key and diagnose plays correctly so that he’s in the right spots. His speed can work against him if he makes a bad decision. That would put him even further out of position.

Brown started out with the third team. He’s now getting reps with the second team on a more regular basis. The coaches are going to give him every chance to show what he can do.

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Cross Training

Posted August 3rd, 2023 | 1 Comment »

Fans and the media sometimes obsess over who plays where and when in Training Camp. This can be important in some situations. Other times coaches are just trying to mix things up and we can read too much into it.

Coaches spend the summer trying to find the best 53 players and also getting those players ready for the regular season. They know injuries will happen during the season so they want players to get time at different positions. The coaches mixed up some OL looks on Thursday. Here is a note from Fran Duffy.

Rookie offensive lineman Tyler Steen, who had seen most of his reps as the backup right guard here in camp, got extensive looks as a backup left tackle on Thursday. This was a part of a handful of shuffles up front, with Dennis Kelly sliding inside to left guard in place of Sua Opeta, who switched over to Steen’s previous spot. Jack Driscoll, who has gotten reps at both tackle spots this summer, went back over to right tackle. Versatility is imperative for all offensive linemen, but especially for the backups. Having days like this allow Jeff Stoutland, Brian Johnson, and the rest of the coaching staff to gauge exactly where players can fill in just in case there’s an injury up front.

Steen played LT for 4 years in college so getting him reps there certainly makes sense. It does raise a question, though. Has Cam Jurgens won the RG competition? Jurgens has looked good so far and has an extra year in the league. He is new to OG, but has performed well in practice. Steen has been up and down, as most rookies are. Steen should be cross-trained, but the Eagles will need to have him focus on one position. It will be interesting to see where he practices in the coming days.

Kelly has played LT and RT so far this summer. Moving inside is new, but he’s done it in the past. Here’s a note from the Eagles after his signing.

He’s big, strong, and versatile, having taken more than 100 snaps at four different positions in his career – more than 2,500 snaps at right tackle, 650-plus snaps at left tackle, over 400 snaps at right guard, and 128 snaps at left guard.

Part of Kelly’s value is his versatility. He needs to move around to different spots.

Driscoll can play anywhere but C. If Steen focuses on LT, Opeta could get more looks as the #2 RG.

Back to Jurgens. You can certainly count Zach Berman as someone who’s been impressed by the young OL.

In my opinion, the most significant development of one-on-ones so far has been how impressive Jurgens has looked. On Thursday, he held up well against Fletcher Cox and later took a rep at center, handling Noah Elliss’ power push.

Sure sounds like Jurgens has a solid lead at RG for now.

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Nakobe Dean got hurt (not serious) and left practice. Christian Elliss and Nick Morrow were the starting LBs. After that? Jimmy Bama has the interesting development.

The more interesting positional observation is that first-round rookie Nolan Smith got some reps at off-ball linebacker. There’s little doubt that Smith has the athleticism to play off-ball linebacker, and certainly the Eagles are short on depth there, but do they want to distract from his development on the edge, which of course is the far more important position but one where the Eagles have incredible depth?

To be clear, Smith got a very small handful of reps at off-ball linebacker. It will be interesting to see if he gets more of them as camp progresses, or if it was merely a matter of just letting him fill in for one practice for the injured Dean.

I compared Smith to Micah Parsons in the pre-draft process. They have similar size and both are freak athletes. Parsons started off at LB and moved to edge rusher. Smith has the skills to play LB, as well as being an edge rusher.

Most likely this move was just done because the Eagles were light at LB, but it is interesting that they gave Smith the chance to play there. The Eagles are loaded at Edge (Reddick, Sweat, BG, Barnett). If you want Smith to get on the field more, see if you can mix him in at LB. The coaches should want him on the field. I think that is a guy you look at creatively and experiment with. Find a way to get him snaps.

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Safety is another spot with moving parts. Zach Berman has more.

On defense, the shuffling at safety continued, with Reed Blankenship again spending all his time with the first-team defense while paired with a rotating group. Terrell Edmunds, K’Von Wallace and, for the first time this summer, Sydney Brown comprised the participants in that game of musical chairs. Brown working with the starters is a good sign for the possibility that he will be involved in the defense early on, though Wallace and Edmunds have had their moments too.

Edmunds has the most experience. Wallace has the most experience with the Eagles. Brown is the youngest and most talented. The coaches are giving all three guys a chance to play and show what they can do.

We haven’t seen enough of anyone to say who is actually leading the competition. There is a case to be made for each of them.

Part of me would love to see Brown win because of his potential. He and Blankenship could form a talented duo to run the back end of the defense for the next few years. It is good to see Wallace continuing to improve. He flat-lined early on, but then played well on STs and had some good moments on defense.

Sean Desai might decide he wants a veteran on the field and that Edmunds experience is too important to pass up. Safety is more about brains/instincts than athleticism.

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Chris McPherson was impressed by Christian Elliss.

Linebacker Christian Elliss took advantage of his reps with the first-team defense in the 7-on-7 period, generating the lone takeaway of the day. Elliss punched the ball out of the hands of wide receiver Joseph Ngata, who caught the ball on a shallow cross underneath. It was a bang-bang play, but it looked like Ngata made a football move in control of the ball. Nonetheless, Zech McPhearson recovered the fumble for the defense. Elliss also blitzed Tanner McKee on the final play of the team session and would have gotten home for the sack.

Elliss stood out in the OTAs. He has continued to play well in camp. Elliss has a legit shot to win a starting LB spot. He is making more plays than any of the other LBs and that is huge for that spot. You want playmakers in the middle of the defense.

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Berman had an interesting take on Jalen Hurts.

Hurts didn’t have as many standout plays as in previous sessions, but this was another good practice. It wasn’t outstanding, but in a previous summer, this might have been one of his best days. That’s a good sign — when the floor is so high that even a good day seems like the standard. And it’s in line with Nick Sirianni’s biggest takeaway from Hurts’ summer: Consistency.

“You’re going to make splash plays in camp, you’re going to make plays you want back in camp … but I just see his consistency over and over again,” Sirianni said. “He’s made some big-time plays you’ve seen, but it’s really been his consistency. I think he’s operating at a really high level within the offense, just understanding why we do things and how we do things. He’s really like a coach on the field.”

The point about Hurts standard changing this year is right on the money. What was good last year might not be good enough this year. Hurts has raised his game and with that comes higher expectations. His highs from last year are the norm this time around.

It is a lot of fun seeing Hurts continue to ascend. What a unique and impressive player.

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Marcus Mariota continues to be inconsistent. I think it is too early to get worried, but it is certainly worth watching closely. He’s in a new system and playing with backups so some hiccups are to be expected. Still, it isn’t great that most of his best plays are QB runs. A veteran QB like him should be able to make more plays as a passer. We’ll have to see if this changes as he gets more accustomed to the offense and his teammates.

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