The Eagles were back on the field at the Jefferson Health Training Complex on Tuesday afternoon for a lengthy practice to kick off mandatory minicamp.<\/p>\n
After an early stretching period, the Eagles broke into individual drills, did some 7-on-7s and full-team drills.<\/p>\n
The Eagles will be back on the field Wednesday afternoon for their final practice of the spring before a long break. Training camp will begin in late July.<\/p>\n
Here are some notes from Tuesday\u2019s session:<\/p>\n
1. There was just one player who was not in attendance at Tuesday\u2019s mandatory session. Edge rusher Joe Tryon-Shoyinka was not out there again after also missing the two days of OTAs open to reporters.<\/p>\n
But several veterans who were not at those voluntary sessions returned on Tuesday. That included Lane Johnson and Jalen Carter.<\/p>\n
The following players were at practice but were not participating: Makai Lemon (hamstring), Jihaad Campbell (shoulder), Grant Calcaterra, Chandler Martin, Britain Covey, Carson Steele, Tucker Large<\/p>\n
Lemon injured his hamstring during OTAs. He was jogging around to help out with receiver drills but was not in cleats. Campbell should hopefully be back for training camp.<\/p>\n
Several players like Carter, Jonathan Greenard, Cole Wisniewski and Drew Kendall were not taking reps in team drills.<\/p>\n
2. Some offensive depth chart notes:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Andy Dalton was again the Eagles\u2019 second-string quarterback. While the Eagles claimed during OTAs that Dalton and Tanner McKee had been rotating as QB2, Dalton has been the No. 2 all three days open to reporters. Not only that, but McKee saw his third-team reps get eaten into by rookie Cole Payton at one point. Will the Eagles eventually trade McKee or Dalton? That might be logical.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Here\u2019s a look at the offensive lines (left to right) from team drills:<\/p>\n
First team: Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens, Tyler Steen, Lane Johnson<\/p>\n
Second team: Markel Bell, Myles Hinton, Jake Majors, John Ojukwu, Fred Johnson<\/p>\n
Third team: Hollin Pierce, Jaeden Roberts, Willie Lampkin, Micah Morris, Cameron Williams<\/p>\n
When Johnson was out the last couple weeks, Bell was repping at first-team right tackle, so it\u2019s notable that he\u2019s getting work at left tackle during minicamp. Kendall did not take reps in 11-on-11s. Hinton continues to get work at guard this spring after working at tackle in his rookie season.<\/p>\n
3. Some defensive depth chart notes:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Without Jalen Carter and Jonathan Greenard in team drills, the Eagles\u2019 first-team defensive line looked like this: Nolan Smith, Moro Ojomo, Jordan Davis, Byron Young, Jalyx Hunt<\/p>\n
\u2022 Since Jihaad Campbell is still out, Zack Baun lined up next to Jeremiah Trotter Jr. to start the day. Trotter is making the most of his first-team reps. But the Eagles also worked in Chance Campbell with that first team. Campbell was on the practice squad last year and could be a name to watch this summer.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Eagles opened the day in their base defense with Drew Mukuba and Cooper DeJean as the safeties. DeJean then took over nickel responsibilities, while Marcus Epps took the field.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Without Britain Covey, the Eagles\u2019 punt returners on Tuesday were DeJean, Hollywood Brown, Tank Bigsby and veteran tryout player James Proche.<\/p>\n
4. It shouldn\u2019t be much of a surprise but the Eagles\u2019 first-team defense just appears to be ahead of the first-team offense right now. At least that was the case on Tuesday. This Eagles\u2019 defense brings back a ton of starters for Year 3 under Vic Fangio, while the offense is learning a new scheme under Sean Mannion.<\/p>\n
During the competitive situational red zone period late in practice, the offense failed to get into the end zone twice. (The situation was ball at the +25, down 8 with no timeouts and the clock running). The first drive ended with an incompletion to DeVonta Smith with Quinyon Mitchell in extremely tight coverage. The next drive ended with another incompletion; there was nowhere for Jalen Hurts to go with the football.<\/p>\n
Early in practice, Hurts couldn’t connect with Smith on a deep ball as Riq Woolen had tight coverage. That would have been a big completion but they were off. One of Hurts\u2019 best plays of the day came when he avoided pressure in the pocket, stepped up and threw deep to E.J. Jenkins. It\u2019s always tough to tell if the play would have actually been dead in a real game but Hurts does have the ability to extend plays so we\u2019ll at least acknowledge it.<\/p>\n
5. Andy Dalton\u2019s first pass in 7-on-7s Tuesday was picked off by Jalyx Hunt, who dropped in coverage. While we don\u2019t want to get carried away by edge rusher reps in 7-on-7s, Hunt has shown an ability in coverage with three interceptions last season. That shouldn\u2019t be surprising based on his background as a college safety. On this particular play, Hunt said cornerback Kelee Ringo keyed him in on the play and Hunt made the rest happen.<\/p>\n
6. Hollywood Brown made an impressive fingertip catch a couple inches from the ground late in practice. The ball from Tanner McKee was a bit low but Brown was able to adjust and haul it in to move the sticks on third down during the situational period.<\/p>\n
7. Reporters have been at three practices this spring and Riq Woolen has looked good in all three. He has been really sticky in coverage going against DeVonta Smith. His teammates have been impressed by him too.<\/p>\n
8. The Eagles used some 21 personnel (two running backs, one tight end) on Tuesday with both Saquon Barkley and Will Shipley on the field. The Eagles ran just 10 plays out of 21 personnel last year, which was 25th in the NFL. The Packers ran 31, which ranked 18th. But it\u2019s a grouping that is utilized by some teams in the league. The 49ers led the way, using 21 personnel on 36% of their plays. The Eagles have not just been living in 11 personnel this spring.<\/p>\n
9. Rookie QB Cole Payton trusts his left arm but that nearly got him into trouble a few times on Tuesday. Payton nearly threw a few picks during his 7-on-7 period, including one that Jeremiah Trotter Jr. almost had in the flat.<\/p>\n
10. Two numbers that I jotted down a few times on Tuesday were 84 and 89. Both E.J. Jenkins and Johnny Wilson had several catches. Jenkins is a long shot to make the roster in a crowded tight end room, but keep an eye on Wilson in training camp. He was well on his way to making the 53-man roster in 2025 before a devastating injury in August. If he keeps this up, he\u2019ll have a good shot to make the team in 2026. Wilson had a one-handed grab from Andy Dalton in a tight window during 7-on-7s and had some more catches later in 11-on-11s too.<\/p>\n
Stupid Observation of the Day: The last period of Tuesday\u2019s practice took forever as Nick Sirianni kept extending it with phantom penalties. He seemed to be enjoying the competition and the extra reps so first there was a \u201cfalse start\u201d on the offense, then a \u201chold\u201d on the defense. It reminded me of playing a game with a kid who just keeps making up rules as they go. But it was fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eagles were back on the field at the Jefferson Health Training Complex on Tuesday afternoon for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,23193,7,6,242,109,2476],"class_list":["post-914990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-eagles","tag-eagles","tag-eagles-analysis","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphiaeagles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116724990162314084","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914990","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=914990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}