How Eagles' training camp practice routine is changing this summer

If you think the Eagles should practice more, you’re getting your wish.

Just don’t expect Nick Sirianni to make wholesale changes in the way the Eagles hold training camp and run the preseason.

Because the Eagles have held the shortest training camp practices in the NFL since Sirianni became head coach in 2021 and with the late-season collapse last year and the addition of notorious old-school defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, there’s been a lot of speculation about how much — if at all — Sirianni’s practice philosophy will change this summer.

And there will be changes. Just not massive ones.

“What's very important is that we don't over-correct,” he said. “You have to adapt, you have to evolve (but) there's a danger in over-correcting in my eyes. 

“I put a lot of work into figuring out what it takes to win the first game, what's necessary to win the first game. Last year we started off 5-0, the year before that we started off 8-0. Like, I don't know how much to correct. 

“The problem of where we stalled out last year had nothing to do with how training camp was.”

That’s a fair point. The Eagles’ issues with tackling late in the season had more to do with who was trying to make the tackles than anything the Eagles did at practice four months earlier.

Since Sirianni became head coach in 2021, the Eagles are 7-2 in September, the best September record in the league over that three-year span. Both losses were in 2021. They’re 17-6 in September and October, again best in the league. Overall the first 10 weeks of the season, they’re 20-8, tied with the Chiefs for best in the league.

So Sirianni is doing something right.

But a comparison of last year’s training camp schedule and this year’s shows some interesting changes.

We only have the Eagles’ camp schedule through the first preseason game — Aug. 9 against the Ravens in Baltimore — but consider this:

Last year, during the 17-day leadup to the preseason opener — July 26 through Aug. 11 — the Eagles had nine full practices, five walkthroughs and three days off. 

This year, it’s only 16 days from the first practice on Wednesday through the day before the preseason opener, but they have 10 full practices scheduled, with two walkthroughs, three days off and one day that’s unspecified — either a day off or a walkthrough — during the 16-day span from July 24 through Aug. 8.

Bottom line: The Eagles had nine practices the first 17 days last year and 10 practices the first 16 days this year. They had eight days without a practice before the first preseason game last year but only six this year.

Maybe not a huge change but it’s a significant one. 

The Eagles will be on the field more this summer than last. And that doesn’t take into account how long the practices will be, which we won’t don’t know yet.

“I do think that our practices, we're probably on the low end extreme of time out there,” Sirianni said. “There's people that are on the high end extreme (holds his hands far apart) and I think we need to come up to here (holds his hands closer together), but I think we're closer to where we want to be then the high extreme people, if that makes sense.

“Maybe the changes come a little bit more in practice as far as in the season, a little bit differently, there’s been more discussions on that. But one thing that we get when we practice the way we practice, we get high, high intensity and because of that we get more game-like reps. When we have full pads on, the only difference of being live and not being live is people getting tackled to the ground. Offense line’s live up front. 

“So when those guys have pads on, those are full-go practices, except for we're not tackling, right? We're not tackling. And so guys are going to the ground and you try to alleviate some injuries that way.”

So while practices may be a little longer, a little more physical, a little more frequent, the Eagles will still spend most of their time in meetings, film study and walkthroughs and less than most teams on the field beating the crap out of each other.

What about playing starters in the preseason games? If it happens, it won’t be very much.

“Will there be changes?” Sirianni said. “Yeah, there’s going to be changes like we do with our defense, there's gonna be changes like what we do with ball security, there's gonna be changes like we do with offense, but we have to be very careful not to over-correct because we have started the season well.

“Now 2021 we did not start the season well. I think to me that was for different circumstances. In ‘22 and ‘23 we have and so I think everybody in this room, take the first five games, ‘Well, you want to start 5-0?’ Yeah, where do we sign up,’ right? And so we have to be careful about that.”

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