It’s football season.
The Eagles kicked off their 2024 training camp on a humid Wednesday morning at the NovaCare Complex.
The rain held off and the Eagles had a session that lasted 1 hour and 9 minutes before the final horn blew. They will be back on the field Thursday morning before a walkthrough on Friday.
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For now, the Eagles (and most of the NFL) are in their ramp-up portion of the summer. The Eagles will be in shorts, helmets and shells for a while before any fully padded practices. But there’s still plenty to observe.
Here are our first observations of the summer:
1. As we have for years, we’ll start with some housekeeping items:
• Before practice began, the Eagles placed DB Cooper DeJean, WR Shaq Davis and OT Gottlieb Ayedze on the Active/Non-football Injury list. DeJean (hamstring) is expected to miss a few weeks after suffering an injury in an offseason workout. Head coach Nick Sirianni admitted that this is obviously going to be a bit of a setback for DeJean (their second-round pick) but the Eagles are still counting on him contributing as a rookie. The Eagles also put S Sydney Brown on the Active/PUP list as he recovers from a late-season ACL tear.
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• Two other players did not practice: OG Landon Dickerson (toe laceration) and OL Brett Toth (hamstring). Neither of those players were placed on the NFI, so those injuries are considered to be minor.
• DB James Bradberry, CB Zech McPhearson, OG Trevor Keegan and WR Jacob Harris were all practicing on Day 1 of training camp after missing the end of the spring workouts.
2. Some offensive depth chart notes:
• Tyler Steen was the first-team right guard on Wednesday. When asked about that competition going forward, Sirianni said “we’ll see” but we know OL coach Jeff Stoutland would prefer to keep the five starters together as much as possible. After practice, right tackle Lane Johnson said he’d like that too because he wants to build a rapport with the guy playing next to him.
• Without Dickerson, the Eagles put Mekhi Becton at left guard. Becton also played there in the spring when Dickerson missed time with an excused absence.
• So here were today’s offensive lines (left to right):
1st team: Jordan Mailata, Becton, Cam Jurgens, Steen, Johnson
2nd team: Fred Johnson, Keegan, Matt Hennessy, Darian Kinnard, Max Scharping
3rd team: Laekin Vakalahi, Keegan, Dylan McMahon, Jason Poe, Anim Dankwah
• It’s pretty clear that Parris Campbell is the frontrunner to be the WR3, at least among the players on the current 90-man roster. He got the bulk of those snaps.
3. Some defensive depth chart notes:
• For Day 1, the Eagles starting outside cornerback opposite Darius Slay was Isaiah Rodgers. He was one of the three players who rotated at that spot this spring, along with Kelee Ringo and Quinyon Mitchell. Avonte Maddox got first crack at the nickel cornerback spot.
• At linebacker, the Eagles began the day with Devin White and Zack Baun as the two starters and the two of them took the bulk of the first-team work. But during the first 7-on-7 period, White was out there with Nakobe Dean and later in the day during 11-on-11s, Dean worked next to Baun. They are mixing and matching a bit.
• We got our first glimpse this year at Bradberry, who worked as a second-team safety next to Tristin McCollum. Kelee Mitchell and Quinyon Mitchell worked as the second-team corners and Mitchell got reps outside and in the slot. Eli Ricks also got some run as a second-team corner, as did Tyler Hall.
• The top defensive line was Josh Sweat, Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Milton Williams and Bryce Huff. No surprises there.
• The starting safeties were C.J. Gardner-Johnson (who does not stop dancing during practice) and Reed Blankenship.
4. This was Saquon Barkley’s first training camp practice with the Eagles and he was pretty busy.
We saw Barkley take handoffs, catch passes in the flat, snag pitches and he even caught a shovel pass from Jalen Hurts. We even saw Barkley used on an option play when Hurts kept it.
It’s just one day without pads but Barkley looked explosive as a runner and showed smoothness as a receiver out of the backfield.
And every time he touched the ball, the crowd at the NCC gave him a huge cheer.
5. The best two offensive plays of the day came from tight ends.
• After a strong spring, Grant Calcaterra kept it going on the first day of training camp with a nice catch on a tight-window throw in the middle of the field from Kenny Pickett. The pass was just over the very tight coverage from the first-round pick Mitchell.
• The other big play of the day was a deep touchdown pass from Hurts to Dallas Goedert over Ringo. Hurts rolled to his left and unleashed a perfect pass to Goedert. Last summer, Goedert was a real standout in training camp and the production didn’t really follow during the season.
6. It was a very crisp day for Hurts and the offense in general. In the spring, it was clear that the offense was still learning the scheme and Hurts even said the it was 95% new. So it made sense that the offense was behind. But Hurts had a very efficient performance on Wednesday. Not a ton of highlight plays but he was accurate and on time. The one notable incompletion wasn’t even his fault. He hit DeVonta Smith in stride as Smith crossed the field and No. 6 just dropped it. Rare drop for DeVonta.
7. In addition to his arm, Hurts looked pretty good as a runner on Wednesday. Obviously, on Day 1 of training camp his body is feeling pretty good and that showed. There was one option play where all eyes were on Barkley on a fake pitch and Hurts took advantage of the space. He looked spry.
8. The best defensive play of Day 1 came from Baun during 7-on-7s. Working with the second-team defense, Baun looked comfortable dropping into coverage on C.J. Uzomah. The pass from Pickett might have been a tad behind Uzomah (or at least not in front of him) but Baun did a great job of getting his hand in there to bat down the pass.
9. Earlier we mentioned that Campbell is clearly the WR3 right now. Some of that might be by default but he’s making the most of his opportunities. He had a bunch of passes go his way and even took an end-around on a misdirection play during 11-on-11s. Maybe the Eagles go out and add another receiver at some point but if they don’t, Campbell is clearly in the lead to be the guy behind Brown and Smith.
10. We won’t have a ton of notes about linemen before the pads come on but I did see a nice play from second-year defensive tackle Moro Ojomo, who was able to beat the rookie Keegan during an 11-on-11 rep. Ojomo (now wearing No. 97 after sporting 72 as a rookie) showed some flashes last year and might factor into the DT rotation in 2024.
Stupid Observation of the Day: The Eagles list Becton at 6-foot-7 and Mailata at 6-foot-8 but something isn’t right there. Seeing them standing next to each other, Becton is taller.
It was a busy day for Becton, by the way. Not only was he a starting left guard but he apparently lost his breakfast on the field during the humid practice. After the final horn, the offensive linemen ran some gassers and Becton was clearly hurting.
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