Eagles Blog

Couple of NFC East tidbits.

Bad news in Dallas. DE Tyrone Crawford suffered an Achilles injury and is out for the year. He was expected to play DT and DE. He was the Cowboys biggest DE so losing him takes away depth, versatility and size. Always hate to hear when a player gets hurt.

Bad news in Washington (for us). RG3 has been cleared to practice. I think we all knew this would happen so it’s not much of a surprise. Still, would be nice if somehow his debut was held until Week 2. We’ll have to see how RG3 does this summer.

Ruben Frank does a regular column called Roob’s 25 Random Points. I love pieces like this. You get a little bit of everything. And writer’s don’t force writing hundreds of words on stuff that isn’t interesting. Here is an Eagles Training Camp version.

2. Chip Kelly says he’s going to practice in the middle of the afternoon because, “That’s when we play our games.” But they don’t play their games in the middle of the summer. If we have another weather week like last week, with temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s in the thick of the mid-day sun, it would be insane if he didn’t switch up the schedule and practice much earlier or much later. I understand trying to toughen guys up, but practicing in full pads for 2½ hours when it’s 100 degrees out is dangerous and makes no sense. The Eagles have one 1 p.m. game before Oct. 6 (Chargers Sept. 15). Moving practice to a smarter time isn’t going to hurt this team’s ability to play at a high level at 1 p.m.

I’m actually going to disagree with Roob here. I think Chip can get away with practicing at 1230pm because he’s not going to run physical, pounding sessions. Chip will have players moving fast, but the overall length will be less than they are used to and the hitting will be much less than in Andy’s tenure.

Players do have body clocks so I think it is interesting to try to practice at the time when games are played. I’m all for this experiment. If it fails, you change next summer. Why not try something new? If Kelly was an old school coach who wanted to grind his players down I would absolutely agree this is wrong. That’s just not who he is.

Chip Kelly would hate this, but I think it is a good way to look at things for those of us on the outside. Sheil Kapadia broke down the roster into 5 tiers.

Tier 5: These are the longshots. If any of these players land on the 53-man roster, consider it an upset.

Tier 4: These are the fringe guys. Don’t count them out, but they’ll very much be fighting for roster spots over the next several weeks.

Tier 3: These are your backups. They might not play a lot this season, but going into camp, they look like pretty good bets to make the team.

Tier 2: These players will be expected to contribute significantly. They’re either starters or true rotational players.

Tier 1: These are your difference-makers. They’ll be the guys responsible for determining how many games the Eagles win in 2013 and what direction the franchise is headed in going forward.

Sheil’s goal wasn’t to think just in terms of how players fit into the starting lineup, but rather to see how they fit in the roster outlook.

The Eagles will keep 8 or 9 OL. That has to be balanced with the number of WRs, TEs and RBs. You have to see the big picture.

I agree with where he had most guys slotted. Once you get toward the bottom of the roster, it can be hard to differentiate between a camp body and a developmental prospect.

Kudos to Sheil for coming up with a fresh way to look at things.

Nick Foles got a new haircut. Check this out.

The shaggy do is gone. He’s now got a tight cut that makes him more aerodynamic. He’s got sleek hair.

Clearly this was done to make him faster. I now consider Nick a running QB.  Be warned NFL, the speed demon is ready to break loose. Good luck catching him.

Jimmy and I did a show on the rookies and Training Camp. What will we be looking for? How do they fit into the lineup? All kinds of good stuff.

new show

Dan Klausner wrote an interesting piece for BGN. He took a look at how the 2012 Eagles performed in the first 15 plays vs how the 2012 Oregon Ducks did in theirs. Why the first 15? Many teams often script the first 15 plays. You can study that set of plays to see what the coach’s specific plans were for that game.

The conclusion:

Oregon accumulated under 100 yards in its first 15 plays just 3 times last season, while the Eagles eclipsed 100 yards just 1 time.

You can’t make too much of the results because there is a serious difference between the NFL and college football. Also, the 2012 Eagles were a flat out bad team while the Ducks lost one game all year.

It is interesting to see that the Ducks were very good to open games. We don’t know if that will translate to the NFL, but it is encouraging. If the Eagles are able to get off to hot starts in 2013, it will allow the team to run the ball more and play how they want.

I saw a couple of notes on Twitter that reminded me just how much football is a young man’s game.

* Last season the Rams tried to trade Steven Jackson to the Packers for a 7th round pick.

* Ed Reed still has hip issues and the Texans don’t know when he’ll be ready to play.

Both players have been major stars for the past decade. The Rams and Ravens let both guys leave in the offseason without much resistance. As much as we love veterans with great track records, the cold, harsh reality is that football is very much a sport about what you’ll do in the future.

In case  you missed it, rookie Lane Johnson signed with the Eagles on Saturday night. He agreed to a 4-year deal, worth just under $20M.

Reuben Frank has some more details.

Although Johnson’s contract includes offset language, Johnson’s signing bonus is paid in full now. A source said Johnson will get a signing bonus of about $12.82 million as part of a deal worth about $19.85 million. Johnson’s cap hits will range from about $3.6 million this year to about $6.3 million in 2016.

The Eagles have all 90 players under contract now.

The Eagles moved Training Camp from Lehigh for the first time since the 1990s. That was a great tradition. The players enjoyed it. The fans loved it. The people of Lehigh and the surrounding areas made a lot of money because of TC. Everybody won.

Chip Kelly changed all of that when he took over as coach. That was an incredibly disappointing decision, but Kelly feels the team will be better off by staying in Philly and practicing at the NovaCare. It if helps the team win, who am I to complain?

“I just think we have everything here. The fact that we would pack everything up and move, that didn’t make sense to me,” Kelly told reporters last month. “All our video stuff is here. Our servers are here. So you’re dealing with portable laptops and hoping you get practice on it. You have issues when it rains . Where do you go? Our training facility, in terms of how we want to lift, how we want to do this, why would you move everything to go somewhere else?”

Les Bowen went up to Lehigh and talked to some people about the fact that TC wasn’t there this year. Excellent piece.

Of course, neither Lehigh nor Bethlehem has closed down because the Eagles aren’t coming. Hosting a football team for 2 to 3 weeks is an economic boost – Vaclivik estimated his business increased at least 25 percent during camp – but this isn’t quite like when Bethlehem Steel died. The locals who worked at camp did so to pick up a little extra money, not to feed their families.

“For the fans up in this area, it’s disappointing. It’s very much disappointing,” said Dave Rank, who operates two Starters Pub locations in the Bethlehem area, including one on Route 378 near camp that was a popular nighttime hangout for players. Rank has an Eagles helmet flag that he contends has been signed by every Eagle who attended camp since 2001. Autographed Eagles photos adorn the walls.

I was lucky enough to go to Lehigh in 1998, 2005 and 2006. I had a great time on each trip. The atmosphere was just right. There was football going on, but the setting was intimate. Players would interact with the fans when they could. Between the lines, it was all business. When guys came to the sideline, you could have some fun with them.

We’ll see how things go in Philly. I don’t think it will be anywhere close to the vibe from Lehigh, but that will be forgiven if it helps the team win.

Training Camp opens on Monday when rookies and select veterans report. The Eagles will have either 29 or 30 guys in camp. Why the uncertainty? Lane Johnson remains unsigned. He can’t report until he signs his deal. There was some word out of Miami that #3 pick Dion Jordan might be close to signing his deal. If that happens, it could help the Eagles and Johnson agree to a deal.

PE.com has the full list of players that will report.

It really is a shame that the new CBA limits some players from reporting early. It would be great for other young guys to be able to report. Players like Chris Polk, BJ Cunningham and Nate Menkin would all benefit from extra reps. Instead, they’ll have to wait for the end of the week.