Five Things to Focus on in Tonight's Eagles/Titans Game
Preseason football is whatever, but it’s football. It’s always very nice to kick off a new Eagles season.
We’re not going to be on the receiving end of any major epiphanies tonight, not in game one against the Tennessee Titans. A number of starters will play very few snaps, if they even see the field at all.
What we could learn, however, is a bit more about the Birds’ depth, some of those fringe positional battles that will shape the final 53-man roster. Jobs might not be won or lost tonight, but there could be some shuffling, some jockeying for roster spots depending on how the mid-portion and back-end of the squad performs.
That being said, here’s what I’m focused on tonight:
1. Nate Sudfeld and the third QB, whoever he is
Nick Foles ain’t walking through that door, unfortunately.
If Carson Wentz goes down, this is Nate Sudfeld’s team, which is scary considering that he’s thrown less than 30 career NFL passes. And if he goes down, it’s… Clayton Thorson’s team, I guess. He’s thrown 0 career NFL passes.
This is kind of a dumb exercise, but just to put it in another format, here’s what the team lost in Foles vs. what they now have in Sudfeld as a backup, after the jump:
Foles has thrown 1,557 more passes than Nate Sudfeld has.
And then of course you compare Sudfeld’s zero playoff games to Foles’ six playoff games, which resulted in four wins, two losses, and a Super Bowl win. It’s really a massive, chasm-like gulf in experience, which you already knew.
As for Thorson, he apparently has not looked great in camp. But he was a 5th round pick in a slim Eagles draft, so I can’t imagine they would not give him time to develop. Cody Kessler is a former 3rd round pick but hasn’t done much in the league during brief stints with Cleveland and Jacksonville.
2. Sorting out the secondary
The consensus seems to be that Sidney Jones has had a good training camp, which is a boon for the 2nd round draft pick who entered the NFL injured two seasons ago. With Cre’Von LeBlanc and Jalen Mills on the shelf and Ronald Darby returning from the ACL tear, I’m interested to how Jones, Avonte Maddox, and Rasul Douglas do tonight and next week. Maddox’s rookie year saw him drop back to safety to cover for injuries, so now he’ll be able to play exclusively as a corner. Douglas should be improved as well, and Orlando Scandrick will get a shot to compete tonight as well.
Zack Rosenblatt over at NJ.com ran a poll asking followers what three guys they were mot interested in seeing tonight, and Jones ranked highly:
Consensus Top 5 from this poll:
1. Miles Sanders (in a landslide)
2. Josh Sweat
3. Sidney Jones
4. Andre Dillard
5. JJ Arcega-Whiteside. #EaglesFull results in here: https://t.co/8E0KgHuYaY https://t.co/t7yMAmxjA5
— Zack Rosenblatt (@ZackBlatt) August 8, 2019
As for the safeties, that position is less secure. Malcolm Jenkins is your stud at strong safety, and that’s it as far as sure bets. Rodney McLeod is coming back from injury. Andrew Sendejo and Johnathan Cyprien are unknown quantities. Is Tre Sullivan ready to take a step forward? Does Blake Countess make the team? This position comes with quite a few question marks.
3. Linebacker
Depth looks really iffy here with Nigel Bradham out, Paul Worrilow suffering a setback in recovery, and Kamu Grugier-Hill being ruled out for 6-8 weeks with an MCL sprain.
Tonight you’ll probably see a lot of Nate Gerry, who only played about 150 defensive snaps last year but was used in first-team nickel Sunday night alongside newcomer Zach Brown. L.J. Fort will also get a bunch of preseason snaps along with undrafted free agent T.J Edwards. Cyprien, too, can come down and play linebacker, since he fits that hybrid S/LB body type.
In most of the 53-man roster articles I’ve read, people seem to think this will be the LB corps:
- Nigel Bradham
- Zach Brown
- Kamu Grugier-Hill
- L.J. Fort
- Nathan Gerry
- Paul Worrilow (if healthy)
If the season began today, half of those guys would be unavailable. There are moving parts here because of the injury situation. It’s probably the hardest position group to project.
4. New guys
Specifically, interested in seeing how these guys do, in no real order:
- Johnathan Cyprien
- Zach Brown
- Hassan Ridgeway
- Shareef Miller
- Andre Dillard
- Miles Sanders (probably #1 for me)
- JJ Arcega-Whiteside
Marken Michel is another guy getting some preseason love, but unless the team is down on Mack Hollins, it’s gonna be hard for one of these fringe receivers to make the roster.
But yeah, we’ll see how many touches Jordan Howard and Miles Sanders get tonight. Can’t imagine it’s gonna be a lot, but Sanders has been another guy standing out at training camp. Dillard will get plenty of snaps in place of the ancient Jason Peters and I’d imagine Arcega-Whiteside will as well.
Also, and I guess this could have a separate entry, but Doug Pederson noted that Big V will play right guard tonight in Brandon Brooks’ absence. Keep an eye on that as well.
That Miles Sanders jump cut tho 👀 pic.twitter.com/6fI09Jmoag
— Gayle Saunders (@EagleSessions) August 5, 2019
5. The fourth ball carrier
Common thought here is that Corey Clement is the 4th running back behind Howard, Sanders, and Darren Sproles. He’ll have to fend off Wendell Smallwood and Josh Adams to win the job, which I think is probably what happens. Boston Scott and Donnell Pumphrey will get preseason opportunities, but unless they come out flying, I don’t see a path to the roster for them.
The Birds could, of course, keep five running backs, but I doubt that happens, since they’re top-heavy in this area and also likely to go with 10 guys on each of the lines, plus 10 in the defensive backfield. That leaves just 23 guys to fill out the rest of the roster, or actually 20 if you remove the punter, kicker, and long snapper, who are all locks to make the squad.
LET’S PLAY SOME FOOTBALL.