Running Diary: Eagles Practice Observations

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Here’s what we saw during Eagles OTAs on Monday.

12:25 – A shoutout to Andy Reid off the top today. We’ll start with injuries. DeMeco Ryans, Marcus Smith II, Earl Wolff and Julian Vandervelde are working off to the side. Fletcher Cox and Darren Sproles are not here. The Eagles did not provide any reasons why. The OTAs are voluntary.

12:30 – I hate to keep providing video of the defensive linemen, but they are the guys who have been practicing closest to us. Here, they’re working on their pass-rush and their hands with Jerry Azzinaro.

12:35 – My outside-the-box idea for the day: The Eagles should rent out the NovaCare Complex for bachelor parties and make ungodly amounts of money off of 20-somethings looking to blow their paychecks.

Tell me you and your boys wouldn’t like to have a few beers and then participate in a tackling drill like the one shown below.

12:40 – Billy Davis delegates just like his boss, Chip Kelly. During individual periods, he lets the assistant coaches do the heavy lifting with their respective groups. Davis makes the rounds and observes.

12:47 – Sixers coach Brett Brown is here at practice. His relationship with Kelly goes back to their college days.

1:01 – During seven-on-sevens, Mychal Kendricks sticks with Brent Celek and breaks up a Mark Sanchez pass down the middle of the field.

Sam Bradford, who participated more Monday than he had previously, finds Seyi Ajirotutu deep down the right sideline. It looked like a busted coverage, as Ajirotutu was wide open, but still nice to see Bradford go downfield.

As we mentioned in our All-22 breakdown of Bradford, he didn’t go deep much in St. Louis, but when he did, he had some success.

When Bradford gets another shot, he throws one to the sideline, but Jaylen Watkins forces an incompletion. Later, Bradford throws the best ball of the day, finding Zach Ertz down the seam past Najee Goode.

One thing that’s clear with Bradford is he has easily the best arm of any QB on the roster.

1:14 – The Eagles have been doing some mixing and matching with their offensive line. Today, Dennis Kelly is at right guard with the first team, and Allen Barbre is at left guard. Kelly had previously been working with the second team, but is up with the starters in place of Matt Tobin today.

Because Cox is missing, Bennie Logan has swung out to defensive end, and Beau Allen is at nose tackle with the first team.

1:24 – Kelly and Jeffrey Lurie chat on the sidelines during a special teams period. “I’m telling you, Mr. Lurie, the growth mindset move is to build a newer, bigger practice bubble, but perhaps you are more of a fixed mindset guy.”

1:37 – The Eagles show a dime look during this seven-on-seven period. Eric Rowe is outside with Byron Maxwell. Nolan Carroll II and Brandon Boykin are manning the inside spots.

Bradford gets in a nice rhythm and completes four passes in a row, although none of them are downfield.

Later, Matt Barkley gets a shot and fires one downfield for Nelson Agholor, who does a tremendous job of high-pointing the ball against (I think) rookie JaCorey Shepherd.

Bradford gets another turn. He completes three more in a row before failing to connect with DeMarco Murray on the wheel route down the right sideline.

By the way, in case you ever doubt the treacherous conditions I have to fight through for these practice observations, here’s a glimpse at my notes.

That orange mark used to be a bug. And yes, I realize I have the handwriting of a serial killer.

1:50 – Barkley delivers a strike to Ajirotutu on a post in the red zone. One of the better balls we’ve seen out of him in recent memory.

Tim Tebow throws a fade to Agholor, who once again goes up and gets it in the air. Very nice practice for the Eagles’ first-round pick.

Sanchez tries a fade to Jordan Matthews, who sets up on the outside against Maxwell, but Maxwell breaks it up. Matthews didn’t have much of a chance.

Tebow looks for a receiver in the middle of the end zone, but instead finds Rowe. The second-round pick juggles it for a second before coming down with the pick.

2:03 – That’s it for today. We get another session here tomorrow, weather permitting.