Eagles Blog

Matt Waldman studies offensive draft prospects every year. He is a guru, especially when it comes to skill players. He just wrote a piece taking a look at some rookie unknowns to monitor in Training Camp.

Russell Shepard made the list. Here are some of the comments on Shepard.

Talents: The most fascinating player I’ve seen at the Senior Bowl in five years I’ve been attending the college all-start game might have been Shepard. On the third day of South practices, Shepard joined the team as a late addition and they began the practice with drills to emphasize routes and attacking the football.  During that 20-minute span, Shepard was the most impressive player I saw and that included Terrance Williams, Tavarres King,  and Quinton Patton.

He was smooth, precise, and explosive changing direction and did an excellent job catching the football. It wasn’t even close how much better he looked compared to his teammates in the first 3-5 drills they did that afternoon. As the team got deeper in to the practice period, Shepard’s consistency took a nosedive and with every rep he struggled with something. I thought he looked tired and considering that at LSU he was largely a player without a position, I could see how this might happen.

While I chose not to write much about Shepard, I tucked away that sparkling 20 minutes into my memory. The former prize recruit as a quarterback is now earning praise from the Eagles coaches in OTAs for is ability to pick up the system as a receiver.

Go to the piece to read the rest of Matt’s thoughts on the Eagles rookie.

John Middlekauf used to work for the Eagles as a scout. He’s now part of the media and offers some great insight.

@JoshNorris @NFLosophy The arm length thing for OL/DL is so important.Teams really value that. When you have 31 inch arms youve got problems

— John Middlekauff (@JohnMiddlekauff) July 25, 2013

@JoshNorris @NFLosophy Its hard to pull the trigger on a corner that is not in the 4.4s… we did studies, they just dont succeed.

— John Middlekauff (@JohnMiddlekauff) July 25, 2013

@JoshNorris @NFLosophy In Poyers case he'll be a slot guy only who makes up for it w/ great instincts and a physical nature- STeams also

— John Middlekauff (@JohnMiddlekauff) July 25, 2013

Those are the only words to describe Todd Herremans.

Here’s his new look from the front.

And from the side.

Todd does enjoy life. Good for him.

Brandon Lee Gowton wrote up some good practice notes for BGN.

• LB Chris McCoy absolutely stuffed Will Murphy on a rep in 2-on-3’s. He jammed him hard at the line and didn’t let him get open. LB Jake Knott had a nice pass breakup on a short throw intended for Derek Carrier.

• Fan favorite skyscraper WR Ifeanyi Momah showed good hands when I watched him take catches off the JUGS machine in a drill the receivers were doing. Later in the 2-on-3 drills, Momah used his speed to get open deep down the sideline to receive a Vick throw. Momah didn’t catch it cleanly at first – it hit his hands and bounced off – but he kept his focus and made the grab.

He’s got a mixture of notes and then some quotes from players. Good stuff.

Chip Kelly brought in a Navy SEAL to talk to the Eagles.

“Everything we do is high performance,” said tight end James Casey. “It’s awesome when coach Kelly brings in guys like that to talk to us about just kind of their mindset, what they think about, what their mentality is. They’re life and death with what they’re doing and we’re just out here playing a game. What he talks to us about is what their kind of mindset is and how he trains. It really resonates with us and it means a lot to have guys like that come out and talk to us.”

While the circumstances are very different, football players and soldiers do a lot of training.

Part of the message, said Casey, relates to the importance of the team’s practice tempo.

“You rise to the level of your training, he was kind of saying, was one thing that really stuck with me,” said Casey. “You don’t just go out there on game day and perform better, do anything you’ve never done before. You don’t come out there and perform better than you ever did in practice. You practice at a certain level and you expect yourself to practice higher than everyone in the league is going to practice so when it comes to game days, we can wear people down when we get into the fourth quarter because we’ve trained harder so we’re going to be able to perform better when it comes to the fourth quarter.”

Interesting stuff.

The Onion is up and down with sports jokes. This is funny.

Doctors Clear RGIII’s Knee For Light Tearing

 “Robert’s knee has healed to the point where we feel he can safely start damaging the ligament again,” said orthopedist James Andrews, noting that Griffin should limit himself to simple overstretching at first before gradually easing into more challenging connective tissue ripping. “Heading into August, we plan on having Robert tear his knee more severely each day so that the tendon can be 100 percent shredded by the time the season begins.” Andrews added that if all goes according to plan, Griffin would be ready for a season-ending injury by as early as week one or two.

Mean, but still funny. I never wish for players to get hurt, but The Onion believes that anything can be made into a joke.

What do we know so far? Has anything happened since the spring?

Nick Foles got his hair cut.

Mike Vick gained 4 pounds of muscle, mostly by doing lots of curls and bench press.

Matt Barkley got married. And here’s his wife.

I think Barkley might have the made the biggest improvement in the last 7 weeks.

Sheil Kapadia took the time to listen to a podcast where Greg Cosell talked about the rookies in the NFC East. Greg had some interesting things to say. He likes Earl Wolff. A lot.

“I think this kid is a really intriguing player,” he said. “They used him near the line of scrimmage, they used him deep. I thought that he showed very good build-up speed in pursuit. I thought that he was a smart, aware player. I really, really liked this kid.

“I think this kid is a classic case of someone who by his second year will be an NFL starter, will be a good player, and he’ll play for years as a starter in the NFL as a safety.”

I think Wolff can be a starting Safety down the road. I still have a hard time seeing him challenge for a job this year, but he did get some reps with the 1’s in the spring. I’d love for him to prove me wrong and shine right away.

* * *

Cosell was not so high on Matt Barkley. He at least had an original concern.

“A bigger concern I had with Barkley when I watched him on film… I did not think he had really quick feet,” Cosell said. “And that bothered me almost as much, if not more, than the fact that he doesn’t have a great arm. Everybody knows that. But I didn’t think he had really quick feet. And I think that that’s a hindrance because I think in this league, especially if you don’t have a big arm, you need to have explosive lower body movement, and I didn’t see that with Matt Barkley.”

Chip Kelly saw enough movement skills to think that Barkley could play in his offense. Greg knows football incredibly well, but I’ll defer to Kelly on this one.

Chip Kelly, like all coaches, puts his players through a conditioning test at the start of camp. Rookies went through that today. P Brad Wing and RB Matthew Tucker, both UDFAs, failed the test. They were moved to the NFI List and will stay there until they pass the test.

The conditioning test is just running, usually from sideline to sideline. You have to do that somewhere between 10 and 20 times. There are different time limits for different positions.

This isn’t a big deal, but it certainly isn’t a good start for a couple of UDFAs that want to push for roster spots.

Sports Illustrated writer Don Banks posted his 10 Training Camp Questions. The Eagles came in at No. 1.

1. Can the Eagles master Chip Kelly’s up-tempo, fast-break offense and exit the preseason looking like an NFL version of the Oregon Ducks?

From what I gleaned in the one Philly OTA session I attended, the Eagles are making a fairly smooth transition from Andy World and learning to practice and play the Kelly way, with minimal wasted time or energy during a workout. Kelly’s MO is to involve and engage as many players as possible on every snap and in every phase of practice, going full speed for 12 minutes at a time in team drills, followed by five-minute teaching periods that serve to give his guys a chance to catch their breath.

But OTAs are an entirely different game compared to the preseason, when the shoulder pads go on, the hitting commences and the intensity gets ramped up a notch or three. That’s when we’ll start to see the full effect of Kelly’s break-neck style of offense, and whether or not it can be sustained by his NFL-sized roster.

Complicating the situation, of course, is the quarterback competition that will rage in the coming weeks, with Michael Vick, Nick Foles and maybe even rookie Matt Barkley vying to prove their skill set is the best fit for Kelly’s aggressive and attacking approach. The sooner the Eagles’ offense identifies its trigger man, the better. Starting next week, all seat belts should be fastened for a full-speed takeoff in Philly.

If you click the link, you can also watch a short video with Peter King talking about Chip Kelly.