We know Byron Maxwell is one starting CB. The other? The Eagles have a few months to figure that out. It will be an open competition between now and mid-August. For now, Nolan Carroll is on the field as the other starter.

Why Carroll?

He has the best combination of size, experience in the scheme, ability and versatility. Walter Thurmond is new to the team. EJ Biggers might be a CB or he might be a S. And he’s also new. Eric Rowe is a rookie. And poor old Brandon Boykin is thought of as a slot guy. He’ll get some chances outside, but would need to be spectacular to convince the coaches to go with him.

The fact Carroll is out there now doesn’t mean anything significant. He’s leading the Indy 500 after half a lap. That’s it. Carroll can keep the job if he plays well, but being on the field with the 1’s isn’t a big deal to Chip Kelly. He tells us that every summer when we obsess on the depth chart. As he points out, the players set the depth chart with how they play. If Carroll is “starting” for the first week of Training Camp, that will be a more important sign.

Dave Spadaro provided the nugget that Carroll is out there and wrote about him.

The overhaul is complete. The aim is to play press coverage, to challenge wide receivers. And Carroll is competing like crazy to stand out.

“For me, honestly, it’s just work. I’ve come in with the mindset that I’ve got to work harder than everyone else.” he said. “It was the same situation for me in my last year in Miami (2013 season). They added a couple of guys in free agency and they drafted a couple of guys. I have the same mindset now that I had then. I can’t control anything but what I do.

“Cory is asking more from us. He is asking us to compete against ourselves every day, to be better every day. It’s not about competing against the other guys at our position. It’s about competing to be better as a player every day. He’s harping on that. He’s demanding that we give more than we gave the day before. He’s teaching us every single day. He isn’t taking a day off from teaching and from helping us improve so he expects effort from us, too. We have a growth mindset. We don’t have a fixed mindset. We never feel like, ‘Oh, I’ve got it. I don’t have to worry about it.’ We’re pushing every day.

“For him, it’s been about, ‘Everybody is talking about us being the weakest link in the defense. Let’s change that from the back end.’ For the cornerbacks, we want to be able to challenge the receivers and get up in their faces and stop giving up those explosive plays. We’re constantly thinking about not giving up explosive plays. We’re not relaxing out there at all. We’re out there stripping the football, trying to make plays. We’re establishing that mindset now that will carry over into the preseason and into the regular season.”

Carroll could benefit from the presence of Undlin. You have a veteran player and a veteran coach. They could bond well and quality coaching could bring out the best in Carroll.

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Greg Bedard wrote a piece on Chip Kelly for SI.

If you aren’t an Eagles fan, this might be highly informative. But the Eagles are the most heavily covered NFL team. There are a ton of beat writers and the national guys cover the team aggressively as well. There is little in this piece that is new. The talk about how Kelly and Bill O’Brien became friends is the best takeaway for me.

This was also of interest in regard to QB.

Kelly also has predecessors when it comes to making controversial roster moves. In 1981, Walsh knew that he could probably win with quarterback Steve DeBerg, an accurate passer. But he traded DeBerg for a fourth-round pick and went with his gut at QB, giving the job to a former third-rounder who had a 2–6 record as a starter: Joe Montana. Eight years later, when Johnson was just five games into his first season in the pros, he traded away the league’s reigning No. 2 rusher, Herschel Walker. And in 2001, Belichick stuck with a skinny sixth-round backup QB named Tom Brady even after starter Drew Bledsoe recovered from an injury. Bledsoe was traded the next season.

“Jimmy realized that you could replace a Herschel with a near-Herschel and still be pretty good,” former Cowboys personnel exec Gil Brandt says of the old Dallas coach. “Chip realizes the same thing, and he has an eye on the cap. This guy didn’t come in on the turnip truck. He was talking to NFL people, picking their brains, getting ready for this for a long time. He’s a lot more tuned in to personnel than people know.”

That doesn’t make the Sam Bradford move any less risky, but it does offer some perspective.

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Kelly will be speaking today at noon. I’m sure he’ll have one or two interesting things to say.

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