Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cRocco, a couple of weeks in, he\u2019s gelled well with the veteran guys. Athletic individual… He\u2019s doing a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clay also pointed to Underwood’s background, specifically his time working under Joe Houston, whose NFL coaching experience helped prepare him for the demands of professional football. That’s a detail worth noting because Philadelphia didn\u2019t simply bring in a random camp body to fill reps.<\/p>\n
Underwood arrives with legitimate credentials, including a Patrick Mannelly Award, one handed annually to college football’s top long snapper. That doesn’t guarantee NFL success, but it certainly suggests the Eagles did their homework.<\/p>\n
Of course, the real evaluation begins once pads come on, and actual rushers start flying into the protection unit, but early chemistry with Jake Elliott, Braden Mann, and the rest of the special teams operation is an encouraging sign. Long snappers are at their best when nobody notices them. If Underwood wins this job and performs exactly the way Philadelphia hopes, Eagles fans may never mention his name at all, and honestly, that would mean everything went exactly according to plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 23, 2026, 6:19 p.m. ET Long snappers rarely generate headlines. That\u2019s probably how everyone involved prefers it.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2068],"tags":[95878,25,7,6,242,109,2476,119451,97111,97112,95882,95896,95888,95895,95906,96191,95883,95881],"class_list":["post-899747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-eagles","tag-accessfree","tag-eagles","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphiaeagles","tag-sourceeagles-wire","tag-sstssportsnfleagles","tag-sstsneagles","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagphiladelphia-eagles","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116628278713765339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}