A somewhat scathing critique of Doug Pederson’s unwillingness to be different. Philly.com:

As head coach, Pederson’s rationale made sense except for one thing: He can have three channels. Alerted to this fact, the new Eagles coach, to his credit, admitted that he had made a mistake. But did he make an error because he hadn’t studied the rules or because he never thought to question Reid’s methodology? Both are potentially troubling, but the latter would suggest that Pederson either doesn’t have the wherewithal to identify coaching inefficiencies or the curiosity to want to identify them.

Jordan Hicks fits in well with the defense. Philly.com:

Jordan Hicks goes through defensive coordinators like Taylor Swift goes through boyfriends. Though, unlike Swift, Hicks has been an innocent bystander in the parade of coaches who have come and gone in his football life since he enrolled at the University of Texas in 2010.

Frank Reich isn’t so bullish on the wide receivers. Philly.com:

Offensive coordinator Frank Reich was asked about his wide receivers Monday, about what he has noticed there. Reich touted “energy” and “unselfishness.” This was not reassuring. It was like asking a basketball coach about the guys he has at the guard position and hearing that they really work hard and they set good picks.

But he likes Nelson Agholor. Philly Mag:

“He’s got a quickness coming off the line of scrimmage,” Reich said. “He has some vertical speed to challenge you deep, and he just has very good footwork. And in this league, you have to be able to beat press coverage. You have to beat press coverage. And he has a natural ability to get off the line versus press, and he’s got to be able to use that to his advantage to help our team. The film that I saw last year, I saw flashes of it. We come in and I said ‘Oh this guy can beat press coverage, he can get off the line of scrimmage versus press coverage.’ So I didn’t really get into evaluating their scheme and what they were trying to do a whole lot. But you could see flashes of it, and a lot of times when you’re in that tempo offense that they were in, you don’t get quite as much press coverage. They play a little soft and just try to get lined up because they were going so fast. I would anticipate he’ll have more opportunities to do that this year.”

Kicker battle. Philly.com:


There are a lot of battles for positions taking place during Eagles training camp and one of the most intriguing, even if far off the radar of most fans, is the one between Parkey and Caleb Sturgis – the kicker who replaced him in 2015.

Chris Givens is seeing time with the starters. Iggles Blitz:

Givens isn’t explosive like DeSean Jackson, but he is fast. And, as Jimmy pointed out in his piece, he has a career average of 16.6 yards per catch, which is a good figure. Givens could be a good complement to Matthews and Agholor, who are bigger, more physical players. It will be interesting to see if Givens continues to work with the starting offense or if he gets shuffled around. The coaches have done some mixing and matching, but at a certain point they will start using players because they like what they’ve seen from them. You have to stop experimenting and let the players try to build some chemistry together.

Jordan Matthews practicing one-handed catches. NJ.com:

Fly now.